ROME, July 15, 2008 (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will meet Pope Benedict XVI and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi next week, officials said Tuesday.

Maliki will have a private audience with the pope at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, on July 25, the Vatican said in a communique, adding that Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone would also attend.

The pope is expected home from his trip to Australia for the Catholic Church's World Youth Day next Monday.

Chaldeans are by far the largest Christian community in Iraq, and were said to number as many as 800,000 before the 2003 invasion.

Associated with the 'Crusader' invaders and regarded as well-off, they are now victims of sectarian cleansing, killings and kidnappings at the hands of both Sunni and Shiite Islamists, as well as criminal gangs.

Maliki is set to meet Berlusconi and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on July 24, the foreign ministry said.

Italy withdrew its some 3,000 troops from Iraq in late 2006 a few months after then centre-left prime minister Romano Prodi came to power.