KUWAIT CITY - Arab neighbours Iraq and Kuwait hammered out on Tuesday a key deal that would allow Kuwait to complete the building of a border fence and pay compensation to Iraqi farmers, officials said. ‘We have signed a deal ... after which Kuwait will be able to complete the construction of the security fence,’ Kuwait’s foreign ministry undersecretary Khaled Al Jarallah told reporters after talks with his Iraqi counterpart.The deal calls for the payment of ‘compensation to Iraqi farmers’ on the border, said Jarallah, and added that the amount ‘had been deposited with the United Nations.’
‘We have completed the practical requirements for the demarcation of borders,’ based on UN Security Council Resolution 833 issued in 1993, Iraq’s foreign ministry undersecretary Mohammad Al Haj said. The two officials also discussed demarcation of sea borders and production of oil from border oilfields.
The UN resolution demarcated the land border between the two nations and granted Kuwait some territory that had previously been held by Iraq.
Kuwait began the construction of a 200-kilometer (125-mile) metal barrier along its land borders with Iraq in early 2005, but Iraqi protestors near the town of Umm Qasr tore down parts of the fence saying it was being erected on their land.
| A fence? Reeeally? Sort of like the one that would along the Rio Grande? |