Manama, Bahrain - Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said on Sunday that he expected the Iraqi security forces to be fully prepared to handle the country's security by June or July of next year.
'I believe that the security forces will be full ready by June or July,' al-Bolani, who came into office five months ago, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
He added that the ministry was making progress in rooting out the militia elements that had infiltrated it and was raising the preparedness of the security forces.
'We are in the process of building the public confidence in the ministry to prove that it is ministry for all Iraqis and one that seeks to provide security for them,' he said.
'We are also beginning a massive restructuring programme to help fight corruption and sectarianism, and help raise the preparedness of the ministry's commanding officers.'
Al-Bolani, who earlier addressed the third International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) regional security summit in Bahrain, the so-called Manama Dialogue, said that his ministry had taken steps to stop militias and other dangerous elements from infiltrating it.
'The extent of this infiltration is largely exaggerated. The ministry has (lost) a lot of martyrs and injured from among its ranks who fell fighting terrorism,' he said.
Part of the government's efforts was to disarm the militias and other groups, and have weapons restricted to the security and defence forces.
Al-Bolani pointed out that in addition to training, his ministry was working to acquire new equipment to help detect and prevent bombings.
The minister added that there was better control of the country's borders than in the past, citing that they are negotiating with the Syrians to resolve the problems they have on the Iraqi-Syrian boarder.
'We are in the final stages before we begin issuing new identity cards and travel documents in addition to carrying-out a programme to have better control on our borders and entry points,' he said.
'Most of the illegal entry into the country is occurring through the legitimate entry points with forged documents, so we need those countries to take better steps in preventing the forgery of their documents.'
Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki had said on Saturday that his country was willing to help the US withdraw from Iraq, but he would not elaborate on how they planned to do that before the US officially decided to pull its troops out.
When some ministers at the IISS meeting said that they did not object to Iran's nuclear programme as long as it was not military, Mottaki that the only country in the region that represent a nuclear threat was the 'Zionist entity' because it possesses nuclear weapons.
Saudi Arabia's top intelligence chief had said late Friday that Israel's nuclear arsenal was the biggest threat to the region's short-term and medium-term security.
Coming just two days after the Iraq Study Group in the US presented 79 recommendations on improving the Iraq situation and beginning a US withdrawal, the Bahrain meeting was being attended by some 200 delegates from more than 20 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Turkey, India, Japan, China and the US.
The London-based IISS, established in 1958 by individuals interested in maintaining civilized international relations in the nuclear age, is one the world's leading think tanks on political military conflicts.
