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Baghdad, Dec. 7 (AKnews) - Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to discuss the pending issues between the two countries in an official visit to the neighboring country by the end of this month.
Maliki's planned Kuwait visit comes in response to a Kuwaiti invitation for Maliki to visit Kuwait to discuss the lingering issues between the two nations.
There are several issues lingering between Kuwait and Iraq that frequently spark tensions between the two neighbors: shared oil fields, land and water border demarcations, and the controversial Kuwaiti Mubarak Port which Iraqis believe will take business away from their ports and effect fishermen working in the Gulf.
An adviser to the Iraqi government, Salam al-Quraishi, told AKnews that "Kuwait is a neighboring country and Iraq has to maintain friendly relations with the country based on mutual interests
"Maliki's unannounced Kuwait visit will focus on Mubarak port, finding ways to solve bilateral relations between the two states" al-Quraishi said.
Kuwait's Mubarak port will be built on Boubyan Island in Kuwait, just a few kilometers away from the site of Iraq’s Al Faw port project, by Korean company Hyundai. Mubarak Port is projected to reach completion by 2016 at a cost of $1.1bn and will process 1.8m containers a year by 2015.
According to economists, Iraq’s main port will lose 60 per cent of its business if Kuwait goes ahead with its plans.
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