IRAN-IRAQ TIES

Mottaki's trip was the second such visit from Iran since its U.S. enemy overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003 and oversaw the election of an Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim leadership close to the Islamic Republic.

Saddam's once-dominant Sunni Arab minority is particularly suspicious of non-Arab Iran, and Sunni leaders accuse Tehran of fomenting unrest in Iraq to hobble U.S. military power in the region and of coveting oil reserves in Iraq's Shi'ite south.

U.S. and British officials also accuse Iranian forces of providing bomb-making expertise and equipment to Iraqis, and analysts say Iran may indeed be using the Iraqi insurgency effectively to hold 130,000 U.S. troops at bay.

Despite religious affinities, Iraq's Shi'ite majority is not profoundly pro-Iranian and fought for Saddam during the 1980-88 war between the two neighbors.

But many leaders of Maliki's United Alliance bloc have close ties with Tehran, though their jockeying for favor with various authorities in Iran is, along with their competition for control of Iraq's oil, a source and reflection of factional in-fighting.

Mottaki said Tehran would invite Iraq's neighbors and Egypt for a meeting on the country at "the first opportunity."

"The regional countries at this meeting will emphasize the continuation of a joint determination to help restore peace and security in Iraq," he said.

In a sign of how relations between Iraq and Iran have improved since Saddam's downfall, Zebari said Tehran had the right to develop a peaceful nuclear program.

Washington and Tehran are fiercely at odds over Western accusations that Iran's nuclear power program is a cover for making weapons.

"We believe in the wisdom of the Islamic Republic leadership in handling this subject and we are against any tension in the situation with the Islamic Republic," Zebari, a Kurd, said.

Iran says it has a right to a nuclear program and denies U.S. accusations it is trying to create an atomic bomb.

In Washington, Bush said on Thursday he would consider providing incentives to Iran if it agreed to a suspension of nuclear enrichment activities.

Bush, at a White House news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said they spent a lot of time discussing strategy on how to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis.

"If they would like to see an enhanced package, the first thing they've got to do is suspend their operations, for the good of the world," he said.

Bush also cited the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal as America's "biggest mistake" in Iraq and admitted that aggressive language from him about the Sunni insurgents -- telling them to "bring 'em on" in 2003 -- may have "sent the wrong message."