Iraq will resume negotiations on the fate of the missing

The International Committee of the Red Cross ICRC has announced that Iraq will resume negotiations following four years of suspension, with Kuwait and other countries, on the fate of several missing of the citizens of these countries, since the Gulf war in 1991.

In what seemed as another Iraqi attempt for openness to the international community, the Spokeswoman for the ICRC Nada Doumani said that an agreement to resume negotiations in the context of what is called "the tripartite committee" was signed yesterday in Geneva.

The said committee is composed of Iraq, Kuwait, the US, Britain and France. Doumani indicated that Iraqi had pulled out from the committee in 1998 and this then led to freezing the committee's work. and justified that it can not deal with countries that hate it.

In November, Iraq lastly approved to have back its seat in the committee following continued pressures by the ICRC. The spokeswoman added that the first session of the committee will be most likely held in January 2003.

Kuwait estimates the number of those missing among Kuwaitis and others at 600 persons, while, Baghdad for its part, said that number of the Iraqi missing or detained in Kuwait since the invasion is 1037.