Jordan Seeking Brotherly Relations Between Kuwait And Iraq
by Tareq Ayyoub
AMMAN, Feb 1 (IslamOnline) - Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abul Ragheb on Thursday said that Jordan hopes Kuwait and Iraq could, once again, have brotherly relations and overcome the hostility that exists between them resulting from the 1990-91 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
Abul Ragheb, speaking to a visiting Kuwaiti parliament delegation, said that Jordan is interested in having balanced relations with all Arab states.
"Jordan is willing to have relations with all Arab countries away from axes and [political] blocks," the premier told the Kuwaiti delegation, headed by the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Kuwaiti Ummah Council [parliament].
Abul Ragheb stressed Jordan's firm stand respecting the sovereignty of all Arab states and the right of a country to be free from interference in its affairs from other states.
"Jordan supports Kuwait's sovereignty on its soil as much it supports Iraq's sovereignty over its territories, and [wants] to establish good neighborly relations between the two sides," the premier told the Kuwait delegation.
Jordan's ties with Kuwait were frozen following the seven-month Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in which Jordan refused to join a U.S.-led coalition to force the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.
But relations resumed in the late 1990s, crowned by the visit of King Abdullah to the Gulf emirate in 1999.
Furthering renewed relations, a senior Kuwaiti delegation, headed by Kuwait's Crown Prince Sa'ad Al Sabah, attended the funeral of late King Hussein in 1999.
During their current visit to Jordan, the Kuwaiti delegation also met on Thursday with former prime ministers Tahir Masri and Abdul Karim Kabariti - a close friend of Kuwait in Jordan who won Baghdad's anger for his anti-Iraqi statements during his term in office.
The Kuwaiti delegation also met with members of a Jordanian committee that advocates the release of over 600 Kuwaiti prisoners in Iraq.
Iraq has repeatedly denied that it holds any Kuwaiti prisoners and has said that it is ready to cooperate with any party to investigate the fate of alleged "missing Kuwaitis".
