KING Abdullah of Jordan yesterday became the first Arab leader to visit Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, a landmark step towards reducing Baghdad's isolation among its Sunni Arab neighbours.
The office of the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, released television footage showing the king embracing members of the Iraqi cabinet lined up to greet him.
Washington has long urged Iraq's Arab neighbours to do more to embrace Baghdad, whose Sh
iite-led government has complained of a lukewarm reception in an overwhelmingly Sunni-led Arab world.
King Abdullah and Mr Maliki discussed the improving security conditions in Iraq, where violence has dropped to four-year lows, and Iraq's efforts to rebuild after five years of bloodshed. "The prime minister expressed his hope that this visit will open a new page in the relations between the two countries … and strengthen security and stability in Iraq and the entire region," Mr Maliki's office said in a statement.
Jordan is one of a small number of Arab countries to have named ambassadors to Iraq, but the envoy has not yet taken up his post.
In August 2003, 17 people were killed outside the Jordanian embassy in one of the earliest big insurgent attacks. Up to 750,000 Iraqi refugees fled to Jordan during the conflict in their homeland, but many are now returning.
No Arab ambassador has been stationed permanently in Iraq since Egypt's envoy was kidnapped and killed shortly after arriving in 2005.
In an earlier sign that Iraq's neighbours are improving their ties with Baghdad, Tayyip Erdogan last month became the first Turkish leader to visit Baghdad in nearly 20 years. That visit sought to strengthen ties strained over the past year by attacks launched into Turkey by Kurdistan Workers Party rebels based in remote parts of northern Iraq.
The full article contains 310 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
