"It would be suicidal to risk returning to Iraq," Majed Hassan, 46, told AFP in neighbouring Jordan, where he makes ends meet selling cheap Chinese-made shavers on the streets of the capital.

"I would rather stay in Jordan and suffer than go back to my country and face death," he said.

Hassan dismissed the boasts of the Iraqi government and its US backers that the bloodshed has decreased in recent months.

"The talk about improved security in Iraq is nonsense because innocent people die in sectarian and other violence every day and even Iraqi officials are not safe," he said.

"I will never return to Baghdad unless the United States leaves my country."

Jordan and its northern neighbour Syria have borne the brunt of the refugee exodus that has seen about two million Iraqis flee their homes and both have now taken steps to try to reverse the flow of people.

Jordan, which is host to as many as 750,000 refugees according to UN figures, was set to host a conference on the crisis on Tuesday to be attended by delegations from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt as well as the United Nations.

The kingdom estimates that the refugee influx has cost it more than two billion dollars over the past three years.

Last month, Jordan announced that it would waive the unpaid fines of the estimated 360,000 Iraqi refugees who have remained in the kingdom illegally -- provided they agree to return home.

But to refugees who have lost family members to the sectarian violence raging in their homeland the financial carrot provides scant incentive to return home compared with the perceived threat to life and limb.

"Suffering from financial burdens in Jordan is much better than going back to Iraq," said restaurant worker Ibrahim, 37, who fled Iraq's main northern city of Mosul in 2005.

"The Mahdi Army kidnapped two of my cousins and other relatives," he said, referring to one of Iraq's main Shiite militias, adding that his brother had also been killed in the violence.

"Why should I go back? I will not return unless Iraq gets rid of all the militias," he said.

A 68-year-old Iraqi woman eking out a living selling cigarettes in the centre of Amman tearfully explained why she did not dare return home.

"I can't go back to Iraq," she said.

"It is important for me to stay alive in order to take care of my blind husband because we have no children. What we go through in Jordan is nothing compared to the situation in Iraq."

The United Nations has lent its support to Iraqi government and US assertions that the security situation in Iraq is improving.

"The violence is much lower. There is no question about it," UN Iraq envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Saturday.

But the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees acknowledges that it has no evidence of any rush by Iraqis to return home.

"There are no current indications that the number of Iraqi returnees has increased," Zyad Ayad of the UNHCR's Amman office told AFP, adding that the agency was trying to survey "why Iraqis in Jordan wish to stay or leave".

Businessman Abu Farah, 45, originally from Baghdad, said it would take a much bigger improvement in the security situation to persuade the refugees to head home.

"I think the time is not right now for Iraqis to risk their lives and return, regardless of their situation," he said..

"The reasons that forced Iraqis to leave their homeland must go first before they return."

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