Saudi Arabia, which called for the meeting on Monday, expects foreign ministers from Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan and Kuwait, all of which border Iraq. Egypt and Bahrain are also expected to attend the first region-wide forum on postwar Iraq.

Almost none was on good terms with Iraq during the rule of Saddam, under whom it became oil-rich in the 1970s, fought a war with Iran in the 1980s, briefly occupied Kuwait in 1990 and acquired pariah status.

But all want a say in what comes next, now that Saddam has been ousted by US and British forces and a political vacuum has opened at the heart of a volatile region.

“We want to find a common policy to bring to the table whether it be humanitarian aid or reconstruction, and (discuss) what political relations (with a future government in Iraq) will be,” a senior Saudi official told Reuters. “We will talk about everything, about what is going on politically, its implications for us and how we can assist.”

Some Iraqi political and religious leaders called for a future government based on democracy, federalism and respect for diversity. Iraq’s neighbors are concerned at a vision of the country fragmenting into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni zones.

“They all have fears of each other and so it’s better to work together and meet,” a Riyadh-based diplomat said of the nations, who tried at a meeting in Istanbul in January to avert war. Only Bahrain was not at that conference. “They want to get the process going, to be involved in doing something and to stop independent initiatives.”

Nabil Abdel-Fattah, an Egyptian political analyst, said that for Arabs the war had confirmed the ineffectiveness of the Arab League and now they were looking for non-Arab partners.

“Saudi Arabia and Egypt are trying to make a new political arrangement after the decline of the old Iraqi system. The balance between Arab states and other actors in the area has been disrupted,” he said.

The meeting is likely to offer verbal support for Syria, which has been accused by Washington of harboring fleeing members of Saddam’s once all-powerful Baath Party and developing chemical weapons.

An adviser to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Wednesday that Israel, which has influence in Washington, was instigating the campaign of US threats to force Damascus to make political concessions to Tel Aviv.

Reconstruction of Iraq will also be on the agenda. Major oil producers Saudi Arabia and Kuwait might offer financial help to their northern neighbor.

The Saudi official said Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations would be generous to the Iraqi people. But when asked whether they would invest in Iraq, he said: “It will depend on how we get paid back, whether there is stability, everything.”