Kuwait Backs Down From Compromises with Iraq: DiplomatKuwait has retreated from compromise positions on Iraq at the recent Arab summit in Amman because Baghdad failed to address security and sovereign concerns of the Gulf emirate, the Kuwaiti ambassador to Jordan has said.Kuwait now considers the compromise-packed documents it submitted to the summit "null and void" as Iraq has not reciprocated Kuwaiti concessions, Faisal Mashaan said in an interview published on the semiofficial Jordan Times daily on Monday. Mashaan blamed the two-day summit ending last Wednesday for not bridging the gaps between Kuwait and Iraq over Baghdad's refusal to accept the compromises. Kuwait demands that Iraq apologize officially for its 1990 invasion and pledge not to repeat what it did against Kuwait, he said. During the summit, Kuwait agreed in principle to lifting of United Nations sanctions on Iraq, resumption of commercial flights to and from Iraq and recognition of Baghdad's claims on missing people during the 1991 Gulf War, which drove Iraqi occupation troops out of Kuwait. "However, Iraq refused to take necessary measures to maintain the sovereignty and security of Kuwait," the Kuwaiti diplomat was quoted by the Jordan Times as saying. The decade-old Iraqi-Kuwaiti impasse was one of the key issues discussed at the summit, whose final statement fell short of referring to the Kuwaiti-Iraqi relations due to sharp differences between them. |
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