TOKYO, Oct 14: Iraq's donors said on Thursday the insurgency in the country was the biggest obstacle to reconstruction, as the interim government appealed for firmer world support for historic elections in January.

A joint statement by the 57 countries and institutions at the two-day meeting in Tokyo urged faster aid to Iraq, as much of the pledged assistance has been held up because of the widespread violence.

"We identified security as the biggest challenge to be overcome," said Japanese envoy Akio Shirota, who chaired the conference. "That led to detailed discussions on ways and means to bring about the nation wide elections on time," Shirota told reporters. "Very strong wishes to bring about the elections are expressed by donors."

Ross Mountain, the UN deputy special representative to Iraq, said security would be a key to success in the January elections. "Security for the electoral commissions, security for the six, nine thousand electoral workers, security for candidates to campaign, security of the ballots when they are moved back to be counted - security is going to be extremely important," Mountain told a separate news conference.

The donors' joint statement said that while some projects in Iraq are showing results, some "priority projects could not be financed without additional funding".

Donor nations called on one another and the rest of the international community to "come forward with additional funds" to help Iraq. The Tokyo conference was not designed to secure new pledges, but the European Commission nonetheless announced it would offer another 200 million euros (247 million dollars) for reconstruction, subject to EU approval in the 2005 budget.

The proposed contribution comes on top of 302 million euros the European Commission provided to Iraq in 2003-2004, a Commission statement said. Iran also pledged 10 million dollars to rebuild its neighbour and former rival.

Denmark promised 22 million krone (3.6 million dollars), New Zealand offered about one million US dollars and South Korea offered an unspecified amount, said a senior US official who took part in the Tokyo talks. -AFP