KUWAIT CITY (AFP) – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held closed-door talks in Kuwait late Monday as she intensified efforts to persuade Sunni-led Arab allies to back Iraq's Shiite leadership.

Rice failed to clinch any firm Arab pledges on debt relief or diplomatic presence at talks in Bahrain earlier on Monday but took her campaign to Kuwait for a meeting with Iraq, Arab states, Turkey, Iran and world powers.
Speaking after a meeting in Bahrain with counterparts from six Persian Gulf monarchies, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, Rice said the talks covered relieving Iraq debt and sending ambassadors to the war-torn nation.
But she did not report any decision on either score.
""I do believe it's a process which will move forward,"" Rice told reporters after the meeting, which came one day after she made a surprise visit to Baghdad.
""A number of countries around the table talked about their desire to have permanent representatives"" in Baghdad, she said.
""The terms of debt relief have long been known. It's just a matter of getting the negotiations done,"" Rice added.
Persian Gulf states, especially OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, agreed several years ago to forgive a substantial part of Iraqi debt, estimated to total tens of billions of dollars. Iraq wants this to be translated into action.
A U.S. official who spoke to reporters on the flight to Kuwait, confirmed that Arab diplomats made ""no formal commitments"" on sending ambassadors to Baghdad.
But they showed ""more disposition to look at this,"" he said, requesting anonymity.
There was no immediate confirmation Rice met with Maliki.
Rice said she and the Arab ministers agreed that Iraq should become a ""regular participant"" in the 6+2+1 meetings that have brought together the six oil-rich Persian Gulf Arab states, plus Jordan, Egypt and the United States four times since January 2007.
""I think that's a very good step forward for the reintegration of Iraq into regional affairs,"" she said at a joint news conference with Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmad al-Khalifa.
""I think adjustments are going to have to be made in the way Iraq's neighbors think about it,"" Rice said in Baghdad, claiming that the Maliki government was now behaving in ""a non-sectarian fashion.""
Bahrain's foreign minister said the Arab diplomats had questions about ""the ambiguity of the political picture"" in Iraq, but received a ""very good explanation"" from Rice and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
Zebari told reporters he presented to his Arab counterparts ""a series of specific demands about ways of energizing the Arab role in Iraq,"" and a request to waive debts to some of these countries totaling around 40 billion dollars.
Zebari said Iraq has given Arab countries ""security guarantees"" and allocated premises for their future embassies in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
Kuwait's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah said on Sunday that the emirate will soon send an ambassador to Baghdad and was looking for a building within the high security Green Zone.