A three-day preparatory meeting on a proposed Iraqi national reconciliation conference is due to start in Cairo on Saturday, Arab League (AL) officials said Monday.

The AL, the pan-Arab organization and the main sponsor of the gathering, invited wide-ranging Iraqi political and religious leaders to attend the meeting to be held on Nov. 19-21 at the league's headquarters in Cairo, said the officials.

AL Chief Amr Moussa also invited representatives from other Arab countries, the United States, permanent UN Security Council members, Iran and Turkey in addition to a number of regional and international organizations.

The AL, which opposed the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and has since done little to assert its role in the war-torn country, has recently stepped up its diplomatic efforts in Iraq.

Moussa won support from various Iraqi groups for his proposal to hold a preparatory meeting on an Iraqi national reconciliation meeting during his visit to the war-torn country in October.

The Cairo meeting is designed to set the stage for a more comprehensive conference, possibly to be held in Iraq, to help Iraq's conflicting political and ethnic groups sort out differences.

More than two years after the US-led war on Iraq which ousted former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the country is witnessing relentless sectarian violence.

Disaffected Sunni Iraqis, a minority group which once dominated Iraq under Saddam's rule, have launched a bloody insurgent campaign against the US-backed Iraqi government led mainly by the majority Shiites and Kurds.

(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2005)