Manama: Tehran said that it was ready to talk with the Kuwaitis on the "thorny" maritime border issue as Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani is making a visit to Kuwait on Saturday, Kuwaiti and Iranian sources have said.
During the two-day visit, part of a tour that will also take him to Uganda and Kenya, Larijani, who will be accompanied by several members of the parliament and foreign ministry officials, will discuss with Kuwaiti officials bilateral relations and cooperation, the sources said without elaborating.
On Sunday, Kuwait's deputy prime minister and foreign minister Shaikh Mohammad Sabah Al Salem Al Sabah said that his country hoped for decisive action to help resolve the issue of a shared offshore field which he called a "a thorn in the relations of the two countries."
The minister said that Kuwait had suggested arbitration from the International Court of Justice, in case no deal was reached.
The maritime border dispute with Iran has blocked the development of the massive Dorra gas field, also shared by Saudi Arabia, that will help meet increasing demands from power stations.
The field lies on the Gulf continental shelf between Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Riyadh and Kuwait reached an agreement on their part of the maritime border in 2000.
The Kuwaiti minister's call to address promptly the field issue, a bone of contention between Kuwait and Tehran since the 1960s, was picked up by the Iranians.
On Tuesday, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mihman-Parast said that his country was willing to hold a meeting with Kuwaiti to review the issue.
"We have previously voiced willingness to hold a meeting with the Kuwaiti side to reach an outcome in this regard. It is a good opportunity to talk with Kuwaiti officials on these issues and we hope efforts exerted in this regard have good results," Mihman-Parast said in his weekly briefing.
Reacting to Shaikh Mohammad's statement that Kuwait, like all other countries, would abide by possible UN resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, even though it opposed them, Mihman-Parast said that “all countries should take decisions according to their interest and based on sound facts."
However, he hinted at the possibility that the Kuwaiti stance was not final.
“Yet, sometimes, views could be politically-oriented, a publicity stunt or a result of pressure...Some friends may have ambiguities or points of view that can be brushed away through negotiations…We think all countries in the region should care for clear prospects of the future of the area through cooperation and solidarity, as tension caused by some foreign countries should not deprive peoples of this region to have utmost benefit from political decisions,” he was quoted as saying by Kuwait News Agency.
In his interview with Al Qabas daily on Sunday, the Kuwaiti minister said that he hoped there would be no economic sanctions on Iran.
"We are concerned because we do not want to get into this dark tunnel. It would only increase tension and I am afraid that any misjudgement would result in a military confrontation in the region," he said.
"We have informed Iran that in case of sanctions, we too will suffer. Therefore, it is in our common interests that we talk with the Iranians and urge them to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency so that there would be no excuse to impose the sanctions," he said.
Kuwait and the other five Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, have been wary about developments on Iran's nuclear programme and believe they are being pushed into a no-win situation.
New sanctions would hurt the bloc economically while a military confrontation would be disastrous for the region and any deal between Tehran and Washington that does not consider their interests is likely to be at their expense.
Last month, Bahrain's foreign minister Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa insisted on a representation of the GCC in the ongoing talks between Iran and the world's major countries on the Iranian nuclear programme.
The non-participation of the GCC has caused the talks to fail, Shaikh Khalid told a security conference in Manama. The US said that they would consider the GCC call.
