Iraq has given Kuwait information on 301 Kuwaitis missing from the Gulf War, Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said Monday, accusing the emirate of offering no details on Iraqis Baghdad says are still missing.
"Iraq has provided information on 301 missing Kuwaitis," Sabri said, quoted by the official INA news agency.
"Kuwait however has offered no information on the missing Iraqis, a subject in which it has shown no interest during the meetings of the tripartite committee, which led Iraq to withdraw from it," he said.
Iraq claims 1,142 of its nationals are still missing since the 1991 conflict and has boycotted the ICRC-brokered committee meetings since the United States and Britain waged an air war on Iraq in December 1998.
Since then Iraq has insisted on the ouster of British, French and US representatives from the meetings. Saudi Arabia also takes part in the sessions.
Kuwait maintains more than 600 of its and other countries' nationals disappeared during the Iraqi occupation from August 1990 to February 1991, and claims the missing are still being held in Iraq.
Iraq has admitted taking prisoners, but said it lost track of them during the Shiite uprising in southern Iraq after the country's retreat from Kuwait in March 1991.
"Iraq has already released all Kuwaiti prisoners and is detaining none," Sabri stressed.
Baghdad has proposed the establishment of an Arab League follow-up committee on the issue of prisoners-of-war and the Iraqis and Kuwaitis still missing since the Gulf War.
But Kuwait has rejected the proposal, saying the emirate would only address the issue within the framework of UN Security Council resolutions -- BAGHDAD (AFP)
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