U.S. Undersecretary of State Robert Zoellick met with Iraqi officials Sunday to discuss ways to boost reconstruction efforts in the war-wracked country. Zoellick's meetings with Iraqi finance and planning ministers Ali Allawi and Barham Salih were held behind closed doors at an Amman hotel and reporters were banned access, The Associated Press reported. While U.S. and Iraqi embassy officials declined to comment at the start of the two-day meetings, a U.S. Embassy statement said Zoellick would discuss "strategy and next steps with his Iraqi counterparts on a number of issues ranging from economic and agriculture reform to the continued development of the oil and electricity sectors in Iraq." Zoellick, who flew in from Sudan earlier Sunday, is on a regional tour which is also expected to take him to Egypt. He met separately with Jordan's King Abdullah II, but details on the talks were not immediately available. The U.S. Embassy statement said Zoellick's Iraqi talks were part of the U.S.-Iraq Joint Commission on Reconstruction and Economic Development _ a body which oversees cooperation between Washington and Baghdad and aims to transform Iraq's state-dominated economy into an investment-friendly environment. The meetings were held in Jordan because of security hazards in neighboring Iraq. On Monday, Zoellick and the Iraqi officials were expected to sign four agreements, which the brief statement did not specify. No other details were immediately available.
