STATEMENT BY SHEIKH SABAH AL-AHMAD AL-SABAH,
FOREIGN MINISTER OF KUWAIT

Comments made in Beirut, Lebanon

20 March 2001

Kuwait's Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah said on Tuesday his country would welcome a call at next week's Arab summit to lift U.N. economic sanctions imposed on Iraq for its 1990 invasion of the country.

''I believe this item will be called for by the participants at the summit and that it would not face any objection,'' he said when asked if Kuwait would vote for lifting punitive economic sanctions during the March 27-28 Arab summit in Amman.

''The summit might take a decision to call for lifting economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. Kuwait would welcome that,'' he added after meeting Lebanese President Emile Lahoud.

It was the first official Kuwaiti position announced ahead of the Arab summit, which is expected to have the Iraq trade embargo at the top of its agenda.

Sabah, who is on an Arab tour, said in Cairo on Monday that there was no question of turning the page with Iraq until Baghdad apologised for its 1990 invasion, released prisoners of war Kuwait says it holds and returned ''stolen property.''

The United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq immediately after its invasion of the oil-rich country. A U.S.-led alliance that included several Arab countries expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.

Kuwait has said before it supported an easing of the suffering faced by the ordinary Iraqis because of the sanctions.

But it has argued that its neighbour must implement all U.N. 1990-1991 Gulf crisis resolutions. It stresses that Iraq, and its alleged weapons of mass destruction, still pose a threat to the oil-rich region.

Sabah stressed the embargo was a U.N. decision. ''It (imposing of sanctions) is not a Kuwaiti decision, it is a U.N. one. I am sorry that it is being always said that Kuwait is the cause,'' he said.

'I say that Kuwait has no objection to the launching of a call to lift the economic sanctions from Iraq,'' he added.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said on Tuesday there would be no reconciliation with Kuwait at the Arab summit and reiterated Baghdad's demand that the summit call for the lifting of U.N. sanctions.