Iraq Ready to Cooperate with Jordan to End Crisis With Kuwait: EnvoyIraq is ready to cooperate with Jordan to settle the impasse with Kuwait left over by the 1990 Gulf crisis, which has led to the split in the ranks of the Arab world, Jordan Times reported on Thursday.Iraqi Ambassador to Jordan Sabah Yassin said that his country would "bless efforts" exerted by Jordanian King Abdullah Bin Hussein to mediate between the two countries as the president of the Arab summit concluded in Amman, Jordan on March 28, the semiofficial English daily said. The two-day summit, which was predominated by the Iraqi-Kuwaiti issue, failed to bridge the differences between the sides but entrusted the Jordanian king to continue to follow up reconciliation efforts between Baghdad and Kuwait. During the summit, Iraq demanded a unilateral Arab lifting of the decade-old U.N. sanctions imposed on Baghdad for its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Kuwait, for its part, insisted on an Iraqi apology for the invasion, a commitment of not to repeat such action again, and respect for the sovereignty and security of the oil-rich Gulf emirate. Kuwait, however, agreed to lift the sanctions on Iraq conditionally and Iraq agreed to discuss the issue of Kuwaiti soldiers and citizens missing during the Gulf War, which ended the Iraqi seven-month occupation of Kuwait. The Iraqi ambassador said that Jordan, with its traditionally close ties with Baghdad, could play an active role under the king's leadership in closing the file between Iraq and Kuwait. But he stressed that the Iraqi-Kuwaiti impasse should be solved without intervention from outside the Arab world, accusing the United States and Britain of carrying systematic air raids on Iraq from bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. |
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