BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki flew to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday after the Gulf state announced it would soon name an ambassador to Baghdad, state television Al-Iraqiya said.

Maliki will meet President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan and other officials during the two-day visit, which comes a month after a landmark trip to Iraq by UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan.

During Sheikh Abdullah's June trip, the first by a high-ranking official from an Arab state in the Gulf since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, he said the UAE would name an ambassador to Baghdad within days.

The UAE withdrew its most senior diplomat -- a charge d'affaires-- from Baghdad in May 2006 after another diplomat was kidnapped by Islamist militants and held for two weeks.

Washington has been pushing its Arab allies to send ambassadors and high-level officials to Baghdad to help anchor volatile post-Saddam Hussein Iraq in the Arab world.

An Iraqi government spokesman said on Thursday that Jordan's King Abdullah II will visit Iraq next week in what would be the first trip by an Arab head of state since the invasion that ousted Saddam.

Jordan announced it had appointed an ambassador to Iraq where its embassy has been run by a charge d'affaires since it came under deadly attack in 2003.

The Sunni-ruled Arab monarchies of the region had been reluctant to upgrade ties with Iraq, not just because of insecurity in the country but also because of its Shiite-led government's perceived tilt toward non-Arab Shiite Iran.

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