Kuwait slams Iraq lawmaker over military threats 

Kuwait yesterday summoned the Iraqi ambassador to protest against recent remarks by a lawmaker who accused the Gulf state of “assulting Iraqi fishermen.”

According to a statement by the ministry, the Kuwaiti Deputy Foreign Minister, Majdi Al-Dhafiri, held a meeting with the Iraqi Ambassador, Al-Manhal Al-Safi, where he expressed his country’s “rejection of the Iraqi accusations.”

“These allegations don’t reflect the deeply-rooted relations between the two neighbours,” Al-Dhafiri was quoted as saying during the meeting.

Al-Safi stressed that the allegations were “false”, noting that the Kuwaiti Coast Guard had not assaulted the fishermen.

He hailed what he described as “existing and continuous cooperation between the Kuwaiti and Iraqi coastal forces in addressing the violations of Iraqi fishermen in Kuwaiti territorial waters.”

Iraqi parliamentarian, Alaa Al-Haidari, recently released a video on social media in which he called on the pro-government Popular Mobilisation Forces to deploy fighters in the Khor Abdullah area, an estuary on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti borders, “to protect Iraqi fishermen.”

“I address the Kuwaiti Coast Guard, if you do not behave, we will make you in our own way,” Al-Haidari said.

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