Egypt to host foreign ministers

Iraq:Foreign ministers from Iraq, its neighbours, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the Group of Eight industrialised countries are to meet in Egypt in early May to discuss the security situation in Iraq.

Iraq's foreign minister Hoshyr Zebari said on Saturday that he hoped the gathering would initiate a diplomatic process which would help stabilise the country.

In addition, he said: "We expect there will be chances to hold bilateral talks."

US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has agreed to attend the meeting and has not ruled out direct contacts with her Iranian and Syrian counterparts, Manouchehr Mottaki and Walid Muallem.

The gathering will take place at a time of mounting tensions between the Bush administration, on one hand, and Iran and Syria.

Washington accuses both countries of support for those mounting attacks on US and British forces in Iraq; while Tehran has been angered by the US detention of five Iranian officials based at a liaison office in the northern city of Irbil.

During the recent crisis over the 15 British sailors and marines seized by Iran in the Gulf, Iranian and US naval units held simultaneous exercises in the area, exacerbating these tensions.

The meeting, which will take place at the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on May 3rd and 4th, follows a conference held at ambassadorial level in Baghdad on March 10th.

This meeting failed to smooth relations between Iraq's Shia fundamentalist government and its Sunni Arab neighbours. But Mr Zebari was optimistic that the Sharm el-Sheikh conference could be more productive. The follow-up to the Baghdad conference was originally scheduled to take place in Istanbul this month but was postponed at the insistence of the Iraqis. Mr Zebari said that the government had some work to do to ensure the participation of all the countries invited to the meeting and "encourage all to participate constructively". However, he has adopted an optimistic view.

"There is a new will [to co-operate] and a deeper appreciation of the danger of the situation," he said.

Meanwhile, radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr reportedly urged the Iraqi army and police to stop co-operating with the US and called upon the resistance to focus on driving US forces from Iraq and stop targeting fellow Iraqis.

Thousands of Iraqis streamed to the holy city of Najaf yesterday in response to Mr Sadr's call for aanti-American protest today to mark the fourth anniversary of the American forces' arrival in Baghdad.

A car bomb killed 17 people and wounded two dozen in the town of Mahmudiya yesterday. A suicide car bomb killed seven people in Baghdad while four American soldiers were killed in attacks south of the city. Two others died from wounds suffered in operations north of the capital.