Turkey pledges $5 bn for Iraq reconstruction: minister

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday pledged $5 billion in loans and investment for the reconstruction of Iraq after its devastating three-year war with Daesh.

Saudi Arabia meanwhile said it would allocate $1 billion to investment projects in Iraq and $500 million to support Iraqi exports, while Qatar said it would allocate $1 billion in loans and investments.

Kuwait, which is hosting the international donors' conference, pledged $2 billion in loans and investment.

Iraq has been devastated in its three-year battle against Daesh.

Earlier this week, Iraqi officials told the conference that rebuilding Iraq will cost $88.2 billion, with housing a particularly urgent priority.

Iraq declared victory over Daesh in December, having taken back all the territory captured by the militants in 2014 and 2015.

About $22 billion will be required in the short term and another $66 billion in the medium term, the director-general of the country's planning ministry, Qusay Adulfattah, told the conference on Monday, without indicating any time frame.

"Rebuilding Iraq is restoring hope to Iraq, and restoring the stability of Iraq is stabilising the states of the region and the world," said Planning Minister Salman al Jumaili.

TRT World's Melinda Nucifora reports.

Private investments

Iraq has published a list of some 157 projects for which it is seeking private investments at the conference, which some 1,900 delegates representing foreign governments, private firms and NGOs have registered to attend.

The projects include rebuilding destroyed facilities such as Mosul airport and new investments to diversify the economy away from oil sales, by developing transport, agriculture and industries based on the nation's energy wealth, including petrochemicals and oil refining.

Rebuilding homes, hospitals, schools, roads, businesses and telecommunications will be key to providing jobs for the young, ending the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people and putting an end to decades of political and sectarian violence.

Around 138,000 housing units have been damaged and half of them are completely destroyed, Mustafa al Hiti, who runs Iraq's Reconstruction Fund for Areas Affected by Terroristic Operations, told the conference.

About 2.5 million Iraqis remain displaced by the fighting, he added.