CAIRO -- Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa left Cairo Friday for Baghdad, on the first official visit to Iraq by a league chief since 1990, AFP reported.

"I will discuss with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein all the issues concerning the Arab world," Mussa told journalists before leaving on a special flight to sanctions-hit Iraq authorized by the United Nations.

"The agenda for the talks is open," he added.

Iraq, infamous for vitriolic attacks on some Arab states, has been taking an unusually conciliatory tone with its neighbors before Mussa's visit, which comes ahead of an Arab summit to be held in Beirut in March.

Mussa's trip also comes amid renewed pressure from the United States on Saddam's regime, with warnings from U.S. President George W. Bush that he should accept the return of UN weapons inspectors.

Mussa's predecessor Esmat Abdel Meguid was the last Arab League head to visit Baghdad, in February 1998, but he went as an envoy of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, bearing a message to Saddam.