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Kuwaiti Minister on Three-Nation Tour to Clarify Stance on Iraq
Kuwaiti Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah departed on Monday for France as part of his three-nation tour to clarify his country's stance on Iraq.
Upon his departure, Sheikh Mohammad said that Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah deputized him to deliver messages to the leaders of France, Britain and the U.S. over Kuwait's stance towards Iraq and the outcome of the Arab summit held in Jordan's capital Amman on March 27-28.
The Emir also discussed bilateral relations with the leaders of those countries in the letters, the minister was quoted as saying by Kuwait News Agency.
The Kuwaiti official noted that his country will continue to explain to Arab and friendly nations its true stance towards Iraq in the face of "Iraq's misleading media" reports that blamed Kuwait for driving the Arab summit to a failure.
Kuwait only wants Iraq to apologize for its 1990-1991 invasion and occupation of Kuwait and assure that it will not attack Kuwait again, he added.
During the Amman summit, Kuwait and Iraq were wrestling amid an Arab effort to try to bring them closer 10 years after the Gulf War that ended the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
While Kuwait insisted that its independence and sovereignty be respected and U.N. resolutions related to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait be observed, Iraq, for its part, stuck to its demand that the Arab world unilaterally revoke the decade-long U.N. sanctions and get rid of the U.S.-British air patrols that enforce the two no-fly zones in north and south Iraq.
The Arab summit, the first of its kind in a decade aimed to restore Arab solidarity, ended without putting a draft resolution about the Kuwait-Iraq issue into its final communique due to alleged Baghdad's rejection of the compromising formula.
Following the summit, Kuwait immediately decided to send envoys to a number of allies and friendly countries to clarify its stance towards Iraq.
Kuwaiti former Oil Minister Sheikh Saud al-Nasser al-Sabah left for Russia, China, Turkey and Iran on Sunday as Emir Sheikh Jaber's special envoy to carry out the diplomatic mission.
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