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Egyptian Foreign Minister on surprise Iraq trip
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit made a surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday in the latest signal that Arab nations are slowly reviving relations after years of violence, his office said.
That sounds like he turned out the national lights, then flipped them on and hollered "suprrise" when they walked into the Fertile Crescent.
The one-day visit, the first such trip since 1990, is aimed at restoring formal ties between the two countries, a foreign ministry official said in a statement.

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.

Iraqiya television also reported that Egypt's energy Minister, Sameh Fahmi, had arrived in Baghdad.

The foreign minister said in May that Cairo was ready to send a fact-finding delegation to Baghdad to evaluate security conditions for opening an embassy. "When we set up an embassy in Iraq we want to guarantee that conditions will be favorable and that its security will not be undermined," he said at the time.
Posted by: Fred 2008-10-06
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=251976