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Kuwait Rules Out Change in Relations With Palestinians
Kuwait said on Wednesday a handshake between Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Yemen's capital of Sanaa does not constitute a change in the decade-old icy ties between the two countries.
Sabah shook hands with Arafat under unavoidable and surprise conditions, said an official source from the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.
Reports by two Kuwaiti newspapers said on Tuesday that Sabah, who is also first deputy prime minister, and Arafat shook hands and exchanged greetings twice during Yemen's 10th unity anniversary on Monday.
The papers speculated that the Kuwaiti-Palestinian embrace "revealed a major shift by Kuwait after 10 years of icy relations with Palestinians."
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that "handshake occurred in a protocol condition that cannot be avoided as the PNA president (Arafat) surprisingly approached (Sabah), shaking hands and hugging him."
He also denied there was conversation between the two. "This does not constitute a development in relations between Kuwait and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) as the newspapers had indicated," he added.
Kuwait suspended its relations with Palestine after the Palestinians sided with Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
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