Jordan's Abdullah first Arab leader to visit Iraq

By Waleed Ibrahim and Peter Graff

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - King Abdullah of Jordan on Monday 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 neighbors.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office released television footage showing the king embracing members of the Iraqi cabinet lined up to greet him. Abdullah and Maliki walked hand in hand along a corridor before sitting down for talks.

Washington has urged Iraq's Arab neighbors to do more to embrace Baghdad, whose Shi'ite-led government complains it gets the cold shoulder in an overwhelmingly Sunni-led Arab world.

"The king of Jordan took a bold step when he visited Iraq today," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said in a television interview following Abdullah's visit. "We expect other Arab countries to move in this direction."

In a statement released after he returned to Amman, Abdullah said other Arab countries should extend a hand to Iraq.

Abdullah and 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, Maliki's office said in a statement.

"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," the statement said.

SYMBOLISM

The symbolism of the visit itself is likely to outweigh the importance of anything discussed.

The reluctance of Sunni Arab leaders to set foot in Baghdad has stood in sharp contrast to non-Arab, Shi'ite Iran, which has a full-scale embassy in Baghdad and whose president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, had made a triumphant visit in March.

Even Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose troops have fought cross-border skirmishes with Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq, managed to make his way to Baghdad last month before a single leader of an Arab state.

Abdullah, whose relatives were kings of Iraq until 1958, is one of the Arab leaders to have expressed concern at non-Arab Iran's growing influence in Iraq. But he is also a friend of the United States and sees himself as a Middle East bridge-builder.

This year Jordan became one of a small number of Arab countries to name an ambassador to Iraq, but like the other Arab envoys, Jordan's has yet to arrive. No Arab ambassador has been stationed permanently in Iraq since Egypt's envoy was kidnapped and killed shortly after arriving in 2005.

In August 2003, 17 people were killed outside the Jordanian embassy in one of the earliest big insurgent attacks, with militants seeking to punish what they saw as Arab cooperation with a U.S.-installed order.

In a sign of the extreme security precautions now in place, Iraq waited until Abdullah was safely out of the country before announcing the visit. Jordan waited until he arrived back home.