Coalition forces should leave Iraq: Kuwait

Cairo, Apr 26: The US and British forces should leave Iraq once a new Iraqi government is formed, Kuwait's foreign minister said here on Saturday.
Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah also said Kuwait would not seek Egyptian help to heal a rift between it and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa over regional attempts to avert the US-led war in Iraq.

Sheik Sabah made his comments after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Sinai peninsula resort of Sharm el-Sheik. Both Kuwait and Egypt are close US allies.

When quizzed by reporters if Kuwait would ask US forces to leave Iraq now that Saddam Hussein no longer held power, Sheik Sabah said: "When a government that is accepted by all Iraqis is formed, we will be like all Arabs and demand the withdrawal of foreign troops." He did not elaborate.

Sheik Sabah, who was expected to arrive in Syria later on Saturday, said Kuwait supports the presence of foreign troops in Iraq. Kuwait owes its 1991 liberation from a seven-month Iraqi occupation to a US-led military coalition that drove Saddam's forces out of the oil-rich Gulf state.

"We suffered more than any other Arab country when Kuwait was occupied in 1990," he said. "Therefore, we know the need of the Iraqi people for liberation, and nobody is capable of liberating it except these (coalition) troops." Bureau Report