KUWAIT: Kuwait’s ruler suspended Parliament for one month yesterday as a row escalated between the Cabinet and lawmakers, threatening to draw in senior ministers and stalling economic planning in the major oil producer.

The emir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, can take the emergency step under the Gulf state’s constitution to allow time for talks and avert a deeper crisis that could lead to the dissolution of the elected assembly.

His suspension decree, published on state news agency KUNA, comes ahead of a planned questioning session in Parliament of Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Hamoud Al-Sabah, a royal family member, by hostile lawmakers over Kuwait’s citizenship law.

The wealthy OPEC member state, a regional US ally, has escaped the kind of violent anti-government protests seen elsewhere in the Middle East, but tensions have escalated between the Cabinet and opposition lawmakers who push for a say in government.

Kuwait’s Cabinet is hand-picked by the prime minister who is appointed by the emir.

The Gulf state brought in its fourth government in six years after a snap parliamentary election in February.

But opposition lawmakers, who hold a parliamentary majority, failed to strike a deal with the ruling family in February for a significant share of Cabinet posts and have since used the questioning sessions to target the government.