Pat Dollard | Young Americans

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq’s prime minister says the United Arab Emirates will name an ambassador to Baghdad next week.

It would be the first Arab country to send an ambassador to Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s fall. Many countries have diplomatic missions but no ambassador in Baghdad.

The statement from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office says the Emirates’ foreign minister made the announcement Thursday during a visit to Baghdad.

Many countries in the region have diplomatic offices in Baghdad but only Iran and Turkey have ambassadors.

Washington has pushed Iraq’s neighbors to restore ties with the fledgling country, but security fears and mistrust of the Shiite-led government in Baghdad have prevented many of the Mideast’s Sunni Muslim-led governments from doing so.

“We will hold talks to name the ambassador in the coming few days,” the UAE foreign minister, Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, said Thursday on a visit to Baghdad.

“We also hope that as soon as possible—and I am talking here about a few weeks—we will see an active Emirates Embassy in Baghdad,” he said at a news conference.

The UAE withdrew its ambassador to Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and after one of its diplomats was kidnapped and later released.

The U.S. has sought to blunt fears among Sunni Arab countries like the Emirates and Saudi Arabia over Iran, the largest Shiite Muslim nation, which has been expanding its influence inside Iraq—also a majority Shiite country.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki chided his Arab “brothers” at an April conference of Iraq’s neighbors in Kuwait, saying he found it “difficult to explain why diplomatic exchange has not taken place.”

“Many foreign countries have kept their diplomatic missions in Baghdad and did not make security excuses,” al-Maliki said at the time.

Kuwait has said it is scouting possible sites for an embassy in Baghdad’s U.S.-guarded Green Zone. Kuwait withdrew its ambassador from Iraq when Saddam invaded its tiny oil-rich neighbor in 1990, sparking the first Gulf War.

Saudi Arabia announced in September that it would open a Baghdad embassy “soon,” but its foreign minister, Prince Saudi al-Faisal, then said in April that security conditions were not yet right. But he underlined that the lack of an embassy was not a sign of reservations about Baghdad’s government.

But Thursday’s announcement was the strongest sign yet of tides turning toward regional acceptance of al-Maliki’s Shiite regime, backed by Washington.

“We hope that our visit will be a starting point to enhance cooperation between the two countries, especially in the economic and investment levels,” al-Maliki said Thursday, according to a statement from his office. He also called on Emirati companies to invest in Iraq.

Iraq harbors at least $67 billion in foreign debt—most of it owed to fellow Arab countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s Industry and Minerals Ministry said Thursday it would open 22 state-run companies to outside investment.

Deputy Minister Adel Karim told reporters Iraq is looking for investors to rehabilitate and manage industrial plants according to production-sharing agreements. The companies are spread over five fields: engineering, reconstruction, textiles, chemical and petrochemical and food and medicine.

Investors have until July 10 to submit their proposals, Karim said.