Cairo to send delegate to Arab summit

BAGHDAD, April 4 (UPI) -- The Egyptian prime minister announced plans to attend the Arab League conference in May in Baghdad, an Iraqi foreign affairs official said Monday.

Iraq is to host the next meeting of the Arab League, scheduled for May.

Yassin Majid, a member of the Iraqi Parliament's foreign relations commission, told the Voice of Iraq news agency that Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf plans to attend the May summit.

He said he discussed the matter with Egyptian delegates in Baghdad during bilateral talks on regional affairs.

"The meeting underlined the deep-rooted relations between Egypt and Iraq and the importance of boosting them in the current new stage," he was quoted as saying.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa announced his intention to step down to run for president in Egypt. Moussa joins a list of candidates that includes diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohammed ElBaradei.

The Iraqi State of Law coalition said it proposed former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi as the next head of the Arab League. Allawi, Maliki's top challenger in elections last year, backed out of a key strategic position amid a series of political flare-ups in Iraq.