, 2002 Friday Muharram 14, 1423

Iraq vows never to invade Kuwait

BEIRUT, March 28: Iraq pledged in writing never to invade neighbouring Kuwait again, in the final resolution of the Arab summit in Beirut, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri told AFP on Thursday.

The document stipulates that “Iraq respects the independence and the sovereignty of Kuwait and the respect of its security, which will guarantee avoiding anything that can lead to a repetition of what happened in 1990,” he said.

This was the first time that Iraq agreed to voice such a pledge.

Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in August 1990, only to be driven out by a US-led coalition in at the beginning of the following year. The coalition was strongly supported by neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

Iraq’s pledge was followed by a tangible sign of reconciliation between Iraq and Saudi Arabia later Thursday.

Iraq’s number two, Ezzat Ibrahim, and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz embraced and kissed cheeks amid applause at the opening of the summit’s second and final session, live television pictures showed.

“We have expressed clearly, at their (Kuwait’s) request, our respect of their independence and sovereignty,” Sabri said.

The final resolution also expresses the “respect and the cooperation of the two parties on the lingering issues, particularly concerning the missing,” both Kuwaitis and Iraqis, said Sabri.

“Iraq pledges to cooperate on the issue of the Kuwaiti missing and Kuwait pledges to cooperate on the issue of Iraqi missing,” he said.

The two Kuwaiti requests for an Iraqi pledge not to invade Kuwait again and to reach a settlement on the issue of the Kuwaiti missing persons had not been answered at the last Arab summit, held in Amman in March 2001.

A member of the Kuwaiti delegation told AFP his country had “effectively noted a change in the tone and the attitude of the Iraqi delegation which satisfies us.”

Sabri said the compromise agreement in the draft of final resolutions to be adopted at the closing of the Arab summit later Thursday was “balanced.”

“It answers the demands of the two parties and expresses the will of the two countries to move forward” and turn the page on the past, he said.

Sabri hailed mediation efforts by the delegations of Oman and Qatar that helped the two countries reach the compromise document.

“These two countries played an essential role in reconciling the points of view” of Iraq and Kuwait, he said.

Iraq’s official news agency INA quoted Sabri as saying on Wednesday that Baghdad “wants to establish diplomatic, political and economic relations with Kuwait.

“We favour a first step towards normalising relations between the two brotherly neighbour countries,” said Sabri.

Ibrahim told the summit on Wednesday that Iraq “respects the security of Kuwait” and seeks to “re-establish relations” with the oil-rich emirate.

“We wish to reach a brotherly accord and re-establish relations between Iraq and Kuwait,” said Ibrahim, vice president of Iraq’s ruling Revolutionary Command Council (RCC).

“We wish to see security for all Arab countries, including Kuwait, guaranteed according to internationally recognised borders,” Ibrahim said.

Ibrahim stressed that his olive-branch gesture “was not adopted out of fear of the United States” but from his country’s own goodwill.

Threats of a new, massive US strike against Iraq have multiplied since the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington, with US President George W. Bush accusing Baghdad of developing weapons of mass destruction.

During the Arab summit meetings on Wednesday, Arab League chief Amr Mussa said Iraq had decided to free a Kuwaiti prisoner as a “goodwill gesture.”

Earlier Thursday, Kuwaiti Jassim al-Randi, detained March 15 by Iraq after leading diplomats across the border from the emirate, was released by Baghdad, a UN observer mission told AFP.

Kuwait ‘satisfied’: Kuwait is “100 percent satisfied” with the agreement reached with former occupier Iraq at the Arab summit, Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah said on his return home Thursday.

“Of course I’m 100 percent satisfied,” Sheikh Sabah, who doubles as first deputy premier and led Kuwait’s delegation to the Beirut summit that ended earlier the same day, told reporters at Kuwait airport.

“Who wrote these clauses? I wrote them,” he said when asked if he was happy with all the provisions of the summit’s non-aggression agreement in which Iraq pledged to respect Kuwait’s independence and sovereignty.

Sheikh Sabah hinted that Kuwait no longer demanded an apology from Iraq for invading the emirate in 1990.

US ‘skeptical’: The United States voiced strong skepticism on Thursday that Iraq was serious about mending ties with long-time foe Kuwait and said Baghdad had flouted many previous deals.

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher was pessimistic over reports that Iraq had agreed to respect Kuwaiti sovereignty and territoriality.—AFP/Reuters