Egyptian Foreign Minister on surprise Iraq trip

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit made a surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday in the latest signal that Arab nations are slowly reviving after years of violence, his office said.

The one-day visit, the first such trip since 1990, is aimed at restoring formal ties between the two countries, a foreign ministry official said in a statement.

Cairo has had no official diplomatic representative in Iraq since the July 2005 abduction and murder by al-Qaeda of its charge d'affaires in Baghdad, Ihab al-Sharif.

Iraqiya television also reported that Egypt's energy Minister, Sameh Fahmi, had arrived in Baghdad.

The foreign minister said in May that Cairo was ready to send a fact-finding delegation to Baghdad to evaluate security conditions for opening an embassy.

"When we set up an embassy in Iraq we want to guarantee that conditions will be favorable and that its security will not be undermined," he said at the time.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in April appealed to Sunni Arab states to help stabilize Iraq by living up to pledges to forgive his country's debts, erasing war reparations and reopening embassies in Baghdad.

But Arab nations have moved slowly, in part due to fear that diplomats will be targeted for attack. Egypt's envoy to Iraq was kidnapped and killed shortly after he arrived in 2005.

Egypt is the latest Arab country seeking to strengthen diplomatic ties with Iraq since April when the United States urged its Sunni Arab allies to reopen embassies in Baghdad in a bid to shore up the Maliki government.

Since then Bahrain, Jordan, Syria and the United Arab Emirates have named ambassadors to Baghdad and some Arab leaders, including Jordan's King Abdullah II, have made surprise visits to Iraq.

The prime minister of Kuwait, said in September he had accepted an invitation to visit Iraq in what would be a first since the former president Saddam Hussein's forces invaded the Gulf emirate 18 years ago.

Oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia has said it was waiting for security to improve.