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BAGHDAD: Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit made a surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday, the first such trip since 1990, saying it was the right time to expand relations between the two nations.
"We feel it is the proper time to come to Iraq and launch deeper Iraq-Egypt relations," Abul Gheit told reporters after talks with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari.
Zebari said both nations could benefit from strengthened ties and added that Baghdad was looking for help from Cairo to develop Iraq's war-battered infrastructure.
"We can both benefit from our relations and Egypt can also help us with infrastructure and agriculture," Zebari said at a joint news conference with the Egyptian minister.
Abul Gheit, who is being accompanied on the trip by Oil Minister Sameh Fahmi, said he had visited a location for the Egyptian embassy in Baghdad, but did not say when Cairo hoped to open the mission.
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.
Since February, Cairo has been saying it was ready to send a fact-finding delegation to Baghdad to evaluate security conditions for the opening of an embassy.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in April appealed to Sunni Arab states to help stabilise Iraq by living up to pledges to forgive his country's debts, erasing war reparations and reopening embassies in Baghdad.
Egypt is the latest Arab country seeking to strengthen 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 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.
Washington's regional foe Syria also named an ambassador to Iraq in September.
The prime minister of Kuwait, which was invaded by Iraq 18 years ago, said in September he had accepted an invitation to visit Iraq.
But oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia has said it was waiting for security to improve.
- AFP/so
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