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Iraq Provides Info on Missing Kuwaitis
BAGHDAD, Sept 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iraq has given Kuwait information on 301 Kuwaitis reported missing during the Gulf War, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said Monday, while also accusing the emirate of offering no details on Iraqis who are still missing, news agencies reported Monday.
"Iraq has provided information on 301 missing Kuwaitis," Sabri said, as quoted by the official Iraqi news agency (INA).
"Kuwait, however, has offered no information on the missing Iraqis, a subject in which it has shown no interest during the meetings of the tripartite committee, which led Iraq to withdraw from it," Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Sabri as saying.
Iraq says 1,142 of its nationals remain missing since the end of the 1991 conflict and has boycotted the ICRC-brokered committee meetings in protest of the United States and Britain's air war on Iraq in December 1998.
Since then, Iraq has insisted on the ouster of British, French and U.S. representatives from the meetings. Saudi Arabia also participates in the sessions.
Kuwait says more than 600 Kuwaitis and other nationals disappeared during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, which lasted from August 1990 to February 1991, and claims they are still being held in Iraq.
Iraq has admitted to taking prisoners, but said it lost track of them during a Shiite Muslim uprising in southern Iraq after the country's withdrawal from Kuwait in March 1991.
"Iraq has already released all Kuwaiti prisoners and is detaining none," Sabri stressed, AFP reported.
Baghdad has proposed the establishment of an Arab League follow-up committee on the issue of prisoners-of-war and those missing in action since the Gulf War.
But Kuwait has rejected the proposal, saying the emirate would only address the issue within the framework of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Sabri also warned that Iraq would fight any new U.S. effort to slap so-called "smart" sanctions on the country through the Security Council, AFP reported.
"Iraq is ready for all eventualities and will strongly resist any new evil U.S. proposal [to revamp sanctions] at the U.N. Security Council," Sabri said, quoted by INA.
"If the United States tries to submit its evil plan again, its chances of success will be no greater than they were for the one that preceded it," he said.
A U.S.-backed British proposal to impose "smart" sanctions on Iraq was shelved at the Security Council in early July due to Russian opposition.
The minister also expressed "Iraq's desire to maintain relations with France despite Paris' negative position on smart sanctions," AFP added.
Baghdad has recently said that it would give priority to Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Russia - ahead of France - in bilateral trade as a sign of gratitude for their stances regarding the issue.
The Iraqi people have suffered 11 years of wide-ranging sanctions imposed on Iraq since 1990. Iraq's invasion into Kuwait ended seven months later when a U.S.-led international military coalition waged war against Iraq, entirely destroying its infrastructure.
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