BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq took another step toward healing its rift with Kuwait on Thursday as government leaders welcomed the highest-ranking Kuwaiti envoy since Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion.The timing of the visit by Kuwait’s deputy prime minister, Sheik Mohammed Al Sabah, was symbolic — it came Kuwaitis celebrated the 18th anniversary of the U.S.-led military campaign that drove out Saddam’s forces.But much of tiny Persian Gulf nation was left looted and devastated by the Iraqi occupation, and Kuwait still claims billions of dollars in war reparations. It has refused appeals by Iraq’s government to reduce its demands and forgive about $15 billion in Iraqi debt.There was no mention of the payments in public statements during Thursday’s talks, but Iraq’s prime minister made a point of denouncing Saddam’s aggression.”We are working on the concepts of security and stability, not the ideas of weapons and dictatorship of the Saddam era,” Nouri al-Maliki said after meeting with Sheik Mohammed, who is also Kuwait’s foreign minister.Kuwait and several other mostly Sunni Muslim Arab nations have restored diplomatic ties with Iraq, but they remain wary of the Shiite-led government’s relations with the predominantly Shiite Persians of Iran.The Kuwait News Agency said Mohammed was expected to make another official visit to Baghdad soon with Kuwait’s prime minister, Sheik Nasser Al Mohammed Al Sabah. No date was set for that visit.Ties between Kuwait and Iraq were severed when Saddam invaded. But they resumed relations after Saddam’s was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, and a Kuwaiti ambassador arrived last fall.In southern Iraq on Thursday, authorities buried the remains of more than 480 Iraqi soldiers killed in two wars during Saddam’s rule.The ceremony near Basra included the remains of troops from Iraq’s 1980-88 war with Iran and the 1991 U.S.-led offensive that ended Iraq’s seven-month occupation of Kuwait. The graves included the remains of nearly 250 soldiers returned by Iran last year and more than 60 sent from Saudi Arabia, where some of the 1991 fighting spilled over.The director of Basra’s human rights commission, Mahdi al-Timimi, said the remains of 309 soldiers had been identified. The rest remain unknown. Relatives can ask to exhume a family member’s remains for burial in another site.More than 1 million people died in the Iran-Iraq war and Iraqi soldiers suffered heavy losses in being driven from Kuwait. U.S. warplanes later enforced no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.Meanwhile, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and 12 other people — mostly students — wounded in a roadside bombing in Baghdad on Thursday, apparently targeting a military patrol near Baghdad University, police and hospital officials said.The officials gave the casualty toll on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information.Iraqi security forces have frequently been targeted by extremists seeking to derail security gains. The Iraqis are usually more vulnerable than heavily armored American troops.A court in the southern city of Nasiriyah imposed death sentences for 28 members of a messianic Shiite cult — Jund al-Samaa, or the Soldiers of Heaven — for attacking police and Shiite pilgrims during major religious observances in January 2008. At least 15 people were killed in the clashes.The cult, which is considered heretical by mainstream Shiite clerics, seeks to hasten the return of a Shiite saint who followers believe will lead a time of peace and justice.The court sentenced 18 other members to life in prison.- – – -Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]