The United States will continue to work with other countries on debt relief for Iraq as the International Compact with Iraq prepares to meet next week, State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said on Wednesday.

The government of Iraq and the United Nations co-chair the International Compact.

During a regular State Department briefing, Casey noted that debt relief has been part of the effort to help Iraq move forward since 2004.

"The Paris Club made a decision to ask for 80 percent as a minimum level of debt forgiveness for Iraq among its members, and that is something that a number of countries have already acted upon," Casey said. "But it is certainly an issue that we continue to discuss with many countries in the Paris Club, and certainly something that we do want to see people live up to that Paris Club commitment on." The Saudis have made some announcements in that regard, "and we are very pleased to see that," Casey said. "And we will certainly be continuing to work with other countries as we move closer to next week's compact date, as well as beyond that, to see that they carry out those agreements." The compact is not simply a debt relief agreement, but is designed to provide a variety of different kinds of support "in part in response to the Iraqis' own ability to meet the commitments they have set out for themselves in terms of economic reform," he said. "But obviously one of the many components of helping to improve the lives of Iraqis and helping them develop a stable democratic society is the ability to move forward economically, to provide jobs for people, to give opportunities to the people in Iraq, and to have a fully functioning and developed economy. And the compact and the agreements that are reached under it are part of that effort." David Satterfield, senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the U.S. coordinator for Iraq, has been traveling in the Middle East this week talking with not only Iraqi officials "but friends and neighbors, and certainly is doing so now as we move toward next week's meeting not only of the compact, but of the neighbors group as well," Casey said, referring to the Iraq neighbor's conference scheduled to take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Satterfield is urging officials to do all they can "to help support the Iraqi government, and again, not only on those sorts of economic issues that are related to the compact, but also on some of the broader political questions," which is part of the agenda of the neighbors conference in Egypt next week, Casey said.