Iraq stepped up its efforts to improve neighbourly relations in the face of the US threat of war on 8 January, meeting Kuwait to discuss those still missing since the 1991 Gulf War. Officials are to hold talks in Amman, chaired by the Red Cross, as was agreed in December. Kuwait says that 600 of its citizens remain unaccounted for, while Iraq puts its missing at more than 1,000. Previous efforts by an international commission to resolve the issue were scuppered by Baghdad in 1998, when it withdrew from talks claiming not enough attention was being paid to the Iraqi losses. In a further signal of willingness to co-operate with international institutions, the UN official in charge of accounting for the goods and people missing since the Gulf War has been invited to Baghdad by the Iraqi authorities, in what will be his first visit since his appointment three years ago.