UPDATE 2-Putin calls on Iraq to help LUKOIL revive oil deal

(Updates with meeting, talks)

By Ahmed Rasheed and Dmitry Zhdannikov

BAGHDAD/MOSCOW, March 24 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday called on Iraq to support Russian investments as the head of oil major LUKOIL (LKOH.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) arrived in Baghdad in a final bid to revive a Saddam Hussein-era oil deal.

Moscow has long fought to revive some of the Iraqi contracts lost after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, including a $3.7 billion deal to develop West Qurna oilfield in southern Iraq.

Putin's appeal to Iraq, in a letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, was the highest-level intervention to date.

"Our companies are ready to increase their contribution to rebuilding and modernising Iraq's economic infrastructure, primarily in the oil and gas industries where we have accumulated large experience and have good prospects for the future," the Kremlin quoted Putin as saying in the letter.

"I hope the Russian business community's intent to broaden cooperation will receive appropriate support from the Iraqi leadership," the Kremlin quoted the letter as saying.

The Kremlin said the letter specifically mentioned a project to rebuild a pipeline from Iraq's Kirkuk oilfield to Syria's Mediterranean terminal of Banias, in which Russian firms hope to participate, as well as the West Qurna field.

The head of LUKOIL, Russia's second-largest oil firm, Vagit Alekperov, and Russian deputy foreign minister, Alexander Sultanov, are in Baghdad to meet Iraq's political leaders.