MANAMA: Kuwait is anxious about instability in Iraq and disappointed at its neighbor’s failure to arrest a militia leader who said his group was behind a mortar attack on Saudi Arabia, a Kuwaiti intelligence chief said.

Sheikh Thamer Al-Sabah, president of Kuwait’s National Security Bureau intelligence service, said in a rare interview that his work relationships with his counterparts in Iraq, which occupied Kuwait in 1990-91, and Iran needed improvement.

“We are deeply worried ... about the rapidly growing instability in Iraq,” Sheikh Thamer said on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue, an annual Gulf security seminar.

“After all, Kuwait’s longest borders are with Iraq and any instability will have a direct and a profound impact on us.”

Sheikh Thamer said he was “saddened” Iraq had not detained the leader of an Iraqi Shiite militia who said his men fired mortar bombs that landed near a border post in northern Saudi Arabia on Nov. 21.

Sheikh Thamer said Kuwait welcomed a nuclear deal Iran struck with six world powers recently but suggested Tehran had to do more to win the trust of Gulf states.

“We have been advocating such a deal with Iran and finally we see it coming through,” he said. “However Iran must embark on confidence-building measures with its neighbors.”