Egypt to send envoy to Iraq if security improves

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt said on Friday it would wait until security conditions improved before it returned an ambassador to Baghdad, despite U.S. requests for Arab countries to do more to support the Iraqi government.

Militants kidnapped and killed Egypt's ambassador to Iraq in 2005.

"Egypt will not return its ambassador in Iraq before sufficient security guarantees are provided," foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in remarks carried by state news agency MENA.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday she would press Iraq's Arab neighbors hard next week to do more to support the government in Baghdad and shield it from the "nefarious influences" of Iran

Rice, set to attend a conference of Iraq's neighbors in Kuwait on Tuesday, said her message would be for Arab states to fulfill their promises to increase diplomatic, economic, social and cultural ties with Baghdad.

Egypt has said it will send a deputy foreign minister to the Kuwait meeting.

Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia, have so far resisted U.S. pressure to open embassies in Baghdad, which Washington argues would bolster the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and help counter the influence of neighboring Shi'ite Iran.

Iraq is an Arab nation while Iran's roots are Persian. Both countries, however, have majority Shi'ite populations.

Iraq's foreign minister called earlier this year for Arab states to send ambassadors to his country, saying it was "embarrassing" most had failed to do so five years after Saddam Hussein was toppled from power.

Many Arab diplomats have stayed away from Baghdad since a suicide car bomber attacked the Jordanian embassy in August 2003, killing 17 people.

(Writing by Will Rasmussen; Editing by Giles Elgood)