Iraq appoints ambassador to Kuwait after 20-year hiatus
Mohammad Husain with his father - Al Jareeda
Iraq has appointed Mohammad Husain Mohammad Bahr Al Uloom as its ambassador to Kuwait, an Iraqi foreign official has said.
The post has been vacant since 1990 when Iraqi troops invaded the northern Arabian Gulf emirate and set off the 1991 Gulf War.
The Iraqi nominee is the son of Shiite scholar and politician Mohammad Bahr Al Uloom and the brother of the former oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr Al Uloom.
“We are now waiting for the approval of the Kuwaiti government as per the international protocol,” Mohammad Al Haj Humood, the foreign affairs undersecretary, told Kuwaiti daily Al Jareeda. “Mohammad Husain Bahr Al Uloom is in a long line of eminent individuals from an illustrious and well-known family who long struggled against the Baath party and the Saddam Husain regime.”
The new ambassador would tackle the pending issues between Kuwait and Iraq after the general elections and the composition of the new government, Al Haj Humood said.
“We are keen on starting a new chapter in the diplomatic, cordial and constructive relations between Iraq and Kuwait and based on mutual respect and appreciation,” he said.
Al Haj Humood said that he expected the ambassador to take up his post in Kuwait City two weeks after the Kuwaiti official approval.
Mohammad Bahr Al Uloom, the nominee’s father, was killed in 2001 in Najaf at the age of 73.
Kuwait in July 2008 named its first ambassador to Iraq and last month, the Kuwaiti embassy celebrated Kuwait’s National Day for the first time in 19 years in the Iraqi capital.
