DEAD SEA (Jordan), June 21: World donors must provide money as well as debt relief to Iraq whose massive reconstruction needs dwarf its potential income from the world’s second largest oil reserves, a senior US Treasury official said on Saturday.

John Taylor, Treasury undersecretary for International Affairs, told Reuters in an interview that the United States and Britain were using Iraqi assets frozen in the United State during the reign of Saddam Hussein and some funds from UN-supervised oil sales.

But more would be needed even as crude exports restart, he said on the sidelines of a Davos, Switzerland-based World Economic Forum meeting in Jordan.

“With respect to the amount of resources that are going to be coming in through oil you compare that with the needs, there is going to be a need for donor support,” Mr Taylor said.

“There is not going to be enough (oil revenues) to do the reconstruction that is why this donor activity that is under way is so important.”

International donors meeting in New York on Tuesday to consider Iraq’s rebuilding needs will not get a final estimate of what the country must spend to recover from three wars in 23 years and more than a decade of United Nations sanctions, Mr Taylor said.

The United States itself is not considering the creation of special bond guarantees or any new facilities to back Iraq’s reconstruction efforts, but will rely on its existing aid and credit programmes, he said.—Reuters