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Saudi, Kuwait Deny Role In Deadly Air Strikes On Iraq
RIYADH, Feb 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Saudi Arabia and Kuwait both denied playing any role in the deadly joint U.S. and British air strikes around Baghdad earlier this month despite press reports they offered military bases for U.S. and British aircraft.
"They [Iraq] can say what they want," Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz said to the Saudi Press Agency, SPA.
"But the reality is that the kingdom was not implicated, directly or indirectly" in the raids earlier this month, which claimed the lives of three civilians and wounded 30 others, the SPA quoted Prince Nayef.
"Making Saudi Arabia entertain such a question is unacceptable because it is contrary to reality," the prince said.
"Saudi Arabia wants all the best for the Iraqi people, our Arab and Islamic brothers."
News agencies reported that U.S. and British warplanes carrying out the strikes, took off from Saudi and Kuwaiti bases, as well as from aircraft carriers in the Gulf, provoking the condemnation of the international community.
In addition, Kuwait's foreign minister, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, stressed that the emirate was "not party to the allied strikes," but also added, "We sincerely hope that stability and security will prevail in the Gulf region," he said to Kuwait's Al-Anba newspaper.
Meanwhile, Iraq's ruling Baath party on Monday accused former U.S. president George Bush, the elder, and other Gulf War victors invited to Kuwait to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its liberation, of seeking to colonize the emirate.
"Kuwait today is full of extortionists, led by former U.S. president George Bush ... this criminal…will make his biggest coup this year by squeezing money" from the emirate, wrote the Baath's party's mouthpiece, Ath-Thawra.
"The unworthy rulers of Kuwait are also settling their bills for the foreign military occupation of the country, for the U.S. and British navies in the Gulf, and the U.S.-British aggression against Iraq," it charged.
Al-Qadissiya newspaper described the festivities held in Kuwait Sunday as "shameful" and that emirate had been "placed under the rusty bayonet of the Americans."
Kuwait has turned into "a base of treachery to launch aggression against Iraq," said, Al-Jumhuriya, another official daily, referring to the strikes.
Iraq occupied Kuwait from August 1990 to February 1991. In January of 1991, a U.S.-led military coalition, under Bush's administration, evicted Iraq from Kuwait in the Gulf War after the seven months of Iraqi occupation.
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