Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi arrived in Kuwait yesterday on a historic visit just two days before the 14th anniversary of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's invasion of this small oil-rich state.
Iraqi and Kuwaiti flags flew side by side and both national anthems played as Allawi was met at the airport by Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheik Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah.
Allawi's visit was the first of an Iraqi prime minister since the 1990-1991 Gulf crisis. Iraqi Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari visited Kuwait earlier this week, and other Iraqi officials have been here since the fall of Saddam and the resumption of ties between the neighbors.
Allawi and Kuwaiti officials declined to speak to the press at the airport, but the Iraqi prime minister said that he considered his visit "historic."
After invading on Aug. 2, 1990, Saddam's troops killed more than 400 people, detained hundreds of others, looted the national archives and left some 700 of the country's oil wells in flames or spewing crude before they were forced out by a US-led international coalition in February 1991.
In Lebanon last Monday, Allawi said the anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was "bitter." Baghdad "will seek good neighborly and brotherly relations and a policy of noninterference," he said, adding he didn't see "any problem between Iraq and Kuwait in the future."
The US-backed Iraqi prime minister is on a tour of Arab nations aimed at mustering support and cooperation for efforts to bring security to his violence-ravaged country, as well as its economy and postwar reconstruction.
Security is expected to be high on the agenda of his talks in Kuwait, especially after the government recently announced it was investigating four Kuwaitis, some of them teenagers, who crossed or tried to cross into Iraq from Syria for jihad, or holy war, against US forces in Iraq.
Kuwait is a strong ally of Washington and was the launch pad for the invasion of Iraq. However, many of its politically strong Muslim fundamentalists disapprove of the US military presence in their country.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary