By Stephen Brown

ROME, April 26 (Reuters) - Amnesty International welcomed a drop in the number of executions in 2006 but urged six nations responsible for most of them -- China, Iran, Iraq, the United States, Pakistan and Sudan -- to join the global trend.

In a report due to be published on Friday, Amnesty said the Philippines last year joined the 99 countries that have banned the death penalty for ordinary crimes.

"Many more, including South Korea, stand on the brink of abolition," said Amnesty's Secretary General Irene Khan. "Hard core executioners are isolated and out of tune with global trends," he added.

The London-based human rights group will present its annual report on capital punishment in Italy, which wants a U.N. moratorium on the death penalty.

Although the United Nations opposes capital punishment, the death penalty still exists in nearly 70 countries.

Amnesty's data showed the number of executions worldwide fell to 1,591 last year from 2,148 in 2005.

"In Africa, only six countries carried out executions in 2006," said Khan. "Belarus is the only country that continues to use the death penalty in Europe. The USA is the only country in the Americas to have carried out any executions since 2003."

Iraq joined the list of the world's top executioners, said Khan. The televised hanging of dictator Saddam Hussein in December "belied the reality that the execution rate in Iraq had dramatically escalated over the year with more than 65 hangings, of which at least two of those put to death were women".

Iran's executions doubled to at least 177 people, Pakistan put at least 82 to death and Sudan at least 65 but probably many more. Iran and Pakistan broke an international ban on executions of children well. The United States executed 53 people.

China tops the executioners' ranking with more than 1,000 recorded, though the precise number is a state secret could be as high as 8,000, the rights group said.

However, Khan said officials in China and Iraq had "spoken of their desire to see an end to the use of the death penalty".

Iraq's human rights minister told the U.N. Human Rights Council in March that Baghdad, which re-introduced the death penalty in 2004 to combat violence, could as a first step limit it to extreme cases like genocide and crimes against humanity.

Khan had talks in Italy with Prime Minister Romano Prodi, whose government has backed EU calls for an U.N. moratorium.

With 20,000 people estimated to be on death row across the world, Khan called for a "universal moratorium".

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