Manama: Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Khalid Al Jarallah has dismissed reports citing him as saying that an Iranian diplomat would be soon declared persona non grata and asked to leave the country within days.

Al Jarallah said the reports were baseless and lacked credibility and that he did not utter, mention or hint at the possibility to any form of media, Kuwaiti daily Al Watan reported on Monday.

Reports that Kuwait would be asking an Iranian diplomat to leave went viral in the local blogosphere as the nation is eagerly waiting for the start on Tuesday of the trial of a terror cell formally accused by the public prosecution of espionage for Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah and of plotting attacks in the country.

On Sunday, the government gave members of parliament details about the case at a meeting attended by 26 lawmakers and five ministers.

Following the meeting, Parliament Speaker Marzouq Al Ganem said the government informed them no lawmaker was linked to the terror cell and that the MPs were satisfied with all the measures taken by the government in dealing with the case.

“The government was clear about it — there are no current MPs involved in the case,” Al Ganem told reporters. “There is a full consensus that whoever is found guilty of betraying the nation should be given the highest levels of punishment.”

Reports had emerged on social media that some lawmakers might have links to the cell smashed by the authorities in August following the discovery of a massive cache of weapons and explosives at a farm in Abdali.

Kuwaiti daily Al Jareeda, citing a parliamentary source, said the government told the lawmakers that it would say that an Iranian diplomat working for the Iranian embassy in Kuwait would have to leave the country due to his interference in the terror case.

The source said the interior ministry had asked the foreign ministry to stop its contact with the diplomat for transgressing diplomatic norms, his alleged interference in the investigation and his regular meetings with the families of the defendants.

The source added that the interior minister Shaikh Mohammad Al Khalid stressed at the meeting that “Kuwait was still at war with terrorism and that it would not be over until things calmed down and no terrorist existed in the country.”

Al Khalid during the meeting rejected allegations made by some lawmakers that the cell suspects had been tortured during the investigations.

However, as the lawmakers insisted the violations had taken place, the prime minister, who was at the meeting chaired by the Speaker, said that all forms of violation and the use of force against any suspect were not acceptable.

“Whoever feels that he has been abused should report the violation to the justice,” he said.