FACTBOX: Iraq neighbors' meeting in Kuwait

(Reuters) - A ministerial meeting between Iraq, its neighbors and permanent members of the U.N. Security Council will be held in Kuwait on Tuesday. The meeting will be a follow-up from gatherings in Turkey and Egypt last year. Following are the main points about the Kuwait meeting:

THE KEY PLAYERS ATTENDING

** Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.

** U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

** Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

** Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem.

** Senior representatives from Arab countries, Turkey and Western powers such as France and Britain.

WHAT ARE THE KEY ISSUES?

Iraq and the United States will urge Arab nations to make good on promises to either open embassies or expand missions they have in Baghdad, and to send ambassadors.

Saudi Arabia promised last year to open an embassy but has so far failed to follow through. Zebari last week said Kuwait had promised to name an ambassador soon. But Egypt said it would not send one unless security improved. Militants kidnapped and killed Egypt's envoy to Iraq in 2005.

Talks will also focus on boosting Iraq's security, by sharing intelligence and improving border controls.

Syria's Moualem might call for a national reconciliation conference involving Iraq's divided communities. France is seeking to invite key players to a ministerial-level meeting on Lebanon on the sidelines of the Kuwait conference.

PREVIOUS MEETINGS

The first so-called Iraq neighbors meeting at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in May 2007 was an opportunity to get top officials from the United States and its foes Iran and Syria in the same room to seek ways to stabilize Iraq. Rice held talks with Moualem at that meeting in the highest-level contact with Syria in more than two years.

Rice and Mottaki briefly exchanged pleasantries but did not discuss politics. Later that month, the U.S. and Iranian envoys to Iraq held talks in Baghdad on Iraq's security, marking the highest-level contact in three decades between the two enemies.

At the next meeting in Istanbul in November, talks were dominated by Turkish threats to carry out a major incursion into northern Iraq to attack Kurdish PKK rebels based there.

SYMBOLISM OF KUWAIT MEETING

The venue is rich in symbolism given former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein launched an invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. In January 1991, U.S.-led forces started the Gulf War with air attacks on Iraq and occupied Kuwait. Hostilities ended on February 28, 1991 with the eviction of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

The conference will be Kuwait's highest profile international meeting since the Gulf War.

Relations between Iraq and Kuwait have improved, and Iraqi officials regularly visit the Gulf Arab state.

(Additional reporting by bureaux in Washington, Damascus, Kuwait and Tehran, Writing by Dean Yates; Editing by Charles Dick)