Jordan prime minister arrives in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) -- Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu al-Ragheb arrived in Baghdad Wednesday, the highest-ranking Arab official to visit Iraq for a decade, Iraqi airport officials said.

They said Ragheb arrived aboard a Royal Jordanian Airbus A320 which landed at recently reopened Saddam International Airport at 4:25 p.m. (1325 GMT), accompanied by seven ministers, 12 senators and deputies and top energy and trade officials and businessmen.

The trip, aimed at expanding bilateral ties, will focus on securing Baghdad's agreement to renew an annual oil deal worth at least $700 million this year. The arrangement supplies Jordan with most of its crude and refined oil products on undisclosed concessionary terms.

Abu al-Ragheb's three-month-old government recently put out feelers to Baghdad, indicating that it wanted better ties after a number of misunderstandings over the last few years.

"Jordanian-Iraqi relations are distinguished and we will work for maintaining them," he said on arrival at Baghdad airport.

Asked if Jordan would resume regular flights to Baghdad, he said: "We will work to implement that in the future."

Abu al-Ragheb's visit follows last month's Jordanian flight to Iraq, the first from an Arab country since U.N. sanctions began. The flight ushered in similar gestures by other Arab countries facing popular pressure for practical action against the sanctions.

He was given a red-carpet welcome by Iraq's Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan and several Iraqi ministers and officials.

Jordan, sympathetic to Iraq in the Gulf crisis over Kuwait, turned against Baghdad in 1995 and gave refuge to senior Iraqi defectors. The late King Hussein then called for a change of the regime in Baghdad.

But in recent years Jordan has been an advocate of lifting U.N. sanctions, which it says hurt only the Iraqi people.

Last July, Jordan's King Abdullah and Abu al-Ragheb met Ramadan in Amman for talks aimed at improving ties after years of gradual drift.

The monarch, who has kept his distance from Iraq's ruling Baath party leadership since he assumed the throne early in 1999, conveyed to Ramadan greetings to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. He also expressed Jordan's hope for an end to U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.

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