Manama: Kuwait has denied that there was divergence among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over the crisis in war-torn Syria.

“The efforts exerted by the GCC are geared towards reaching a peaceful solution that saves the people of Syria,” Khalid Al Jarallah, the foreign ministry undersecretary, said.

Commenting on the report that a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said on Tuesday that Moscow does not consider it a matter of principle that Syrian President Bashar Al Assad should stay in power, Al Jarallah said the next meetings in Vienna scheduled for mid-November might result in a final vision regarding the fate of the Syrian president.

There is an inclination to reach a final and clear plan about Al Assad and it will be through a transitional period that will last six months or maybe longer. The plan will be decided at the next meetings, he added.

Al Jarallah said the visit by Kuwait’s Emir Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad to Moscow next week would be a landmark, stressing that relations between Kuwait and Russia were robust and covered a wide range of areas of cooperation, Kuwait News Agency (Kuna) reported on Wednesday.

The senior official said the Arab-South America summit next week in the Saudi capital Riyadh would review ways to bolster cooperation.

“We already have strong relations and we look forward to consolidating them. Kuwait will present a paper that includes its views and visions regarding cooperation between the two groups,” he said.

Al Jarallah said that relations between Kuwait and Iraq were “moving forward on the right track” and that there were steady communications and contacts.

“We look forward to the meeting of the joint commission in January and there are several complex issues that need to be studied and followed up by our brothers in Iraq,” he said, adding he was hopeful that “many issues that have been overdue” will be settled. “The meetings will also provide us with an opportunity to discuss the case of the Kuwaiti prisoners of war and those missing, in addition to the compensations. Kuwait has now twice agreed to requests by Iraq to delay the paying of the compensation dues.”

Al Jarallah said Kuwait looked forward with optimism to the meeting of the joint Kuwaiti-British commission later this month.