Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari appealed to Nato today to speed up promised training for his country's security forces and to provide border security support and military equipment.
"We need this training you promised us in Istanbul to be carried out as soon as possible. We need it, in fact we are in a race against time and it's a matter of urgency," Mr Zebari told a news conference after meeting ambassadors of the 26-nation alliance.
The US-dominated alliance agreed at a summit in Turkey last month to help train the interim Iraqi government's security forces, facing a violent post-war insurgency, but France and Germany object to any collective Nato presence inside Iraq.