BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki flew to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Sunday after the Persian 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 Persian Gulf since the 2003 U.S.-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 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.