Iraq, Kuwait Chart a New Path
Settling the borders issue as a sine qua non condition for normalization between Kuwait and Iraq.
The outcome of the Kuwaiti prime minister's [Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Hamad al-Sabah] visit to Baghdad [June 12] constitutes a breakthrough in the relations between the two countries. This occurred two months after Iraq’s acceptance of a final demarcation of the borders between the two countries.
This was a key condition for the Kuwaitis. Indeed, Iraq’s revisionist policy vis-a-vis Kuwait — considering the latter in the past was its 19th province — had already poisoned the relations between the two a long time before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. It was a haunting problem for the Kuwaitis.
Now came the time for healing such a historical wound. It was also the moment for the new regime in Baghdad to be relieved of the heavy burden and the price that it entailed because of the former regime policies vis-a-vis Kuwait.
The signing of a number of memos of understanding as well as agreements in different sectors of cooperation came to consolidate the reconciliation, and with it the normalization between the two countries. Indeed, the symbolic gesture of having the ambassadors of the two countries to the UN approach their organization together with the request of taking Iraq out from under the charter's coercive Chapter 7 and put it under Chapter 6 amounted to turning the page on the relations of Iraqi historical revisionism against Kuwait. Revisionism that is largely at the basis of the conflict, war and bitterness between the two countries.
