Ruler of Kuwait visits Jordan to eliminate remaining Gulf crisis tensions

It was announced in Kuwait on Tuesday that Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah is determined to pay an official visit to Jordan, the first since the launch of the Gulf War in 1990.

The visit aims at strengthening relations between the two states, relations which were tense for 10 years following the sympathy shown by Amman toward Baghdad during that war.

The Kuwaiti daily al-Qabas quoted the Kuwaiti deputy premier and foreign minister, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, as saying to a group of Jordanian journalists who visited him that, "There will be a visit by the emir of Kuwait to Jordan in the course of the desire of Jordan to strengthen relations with Jordan."

He added that the "people of Kuwait do not have the desire to normalize with the Iraqi regime, but we do not have any hatred for the people of Iraq." He stressed that the Palestinians who live in Kuwait "are honored" and that his country will be among the first to welcome the establishment of the Palestinian state.

The announcement of this visit, whose set date is not declared, came one year after the opening of the Jordanian embassy in Kuwait in March 1999, a measure which was followed by a visit by Jordanian King Abdullah II to Kuwait in September 1999.

In recent months, Kuwait has worked to improve its relations with Yemen and Sudan, yet it still refuses any direct contact with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat or with Iraq.

Before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Kuwait was hosting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Jordanians, but many of those left Kuwait and were only permitted to return after the allied troops ended the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991.