Sabah says Kuwait wishes to end all pending issues

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Kuwait’s foreign minister conveyed to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki his country’s wish to end all pending issues with Iraq and usher in a new stage that would serve the two countries’ joint interests, according to Maliki’s media advisor Yassin Majeed on Thursday. Maliki “discussed in a fruitful meeting on Thursday (Feb. 26) with Sheikh Mohammed Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah means to further ties between the two brotherly countries and end all outstanding issues between the two sides in a way serving the joint interests of the two neighbors,” Majeed told IraqiNews.com news agency. An informed Iraqi foreign ministry source told IraqiNews.com that the most prominent issues discussed with the Kuwaiti side included debts, airplanes and borders. Sabah had arrived in Baghdad on Thursday morning for a visit considered the first official one by a Kuwaiti official since 1990. Sabah congratulated Maliki over the success of the recent provincial council elections that were held on January 31, 2009, adding “this is the Iraq we all betted on”. Relations between the two countries had been severed in all fields since 1990, when the former Iraqi regime invaded Kuwait. They improved relatively, though, after the regime’s fall in 2003. AmR (P) 1