KUWAIT CITY, 29 March 2004 — Kuwait has lifted a 13-year ban on the recruitment of Iraqi manpower, one year after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, a senior minister said in remarks published here yesterday.
“Iraqis are treated like workers of other nationalities. Their recruitment is allowed based on rules regulating the labor market,” Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Faisal Al-Hajji told Al-Watan daily.
Kuwait slapped a total ban on the import of Iraqi manpower when then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered his army to invade and occupy the emirate in August 1990, only to see it evicted seven months later by a US-led multinational coalition.
“There is no need for prior security approval to recruit Iraqi workers,” added the minister, in reference to a mandatory requirement introduced by the emirate for Iraqis and several other Arab nationalities whose government backed the Iraqi invasion.
The number of Iraqis in Kuwait dwindled from around 100,000 before 1990 to less than 20,000 at present. Thousands of Kuwaiti men are married to Iraqi women, several of whom have already been naturalized.
Relations between the two Arab neighbors have been improving rapidly since Saddam’s ouster during the US-led war on Iraq last year. Kuwait acted as a springboard for the invading forces.
Most of the 25 members of the US-installed interim Iraqi Governing Council and senior officials, including interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, have visited Kuwait City many times since April last year.
Kuwait, which imposed a total ban on Iraqi art production after the invasion, has in recent months eased the restrictions allowing the sale of Iraqi songs and permitting state-run radio stations to play Iraqi music. But the ban still stands on Iraqi singers and concerts at hotels and restaurants. Official TV stations also do not broadcast Iraqi music or series.
Meanwhile, the remains of 10 more Kuwaiti prisoners of war (POWs) found in mass graves in Iraq have been identified, the state KUNA news agency said yesterday.
The remains of two students, three servicemen and five civilians, who were taken prisoner during Iraq’s 1990-1991 occupation of Kuwait, were identified through DNA testing, Fayez Al-Enezi, head of the team searching for POWs in Iraq, told KUNA. Enezi said the remains were found in a mass grave without disclosing its location. The team has been searching for remains of Kuwaiti POWs in Iraq since the US-led overthrow of former leader Saddam Hussein last April.
The remains of at least 92 POWs have so far been identified. They include two Lebanese, a Saudi and an Egyptian as well as a number of stateless Arabs.
Kuwait says thousands of its citizens and other nationals were taken prisoner after Saddam’s forces invaded in August 1990 and occupied the Gulf state.
However, over 600 of them remained unaccounted for following the 1991 Gulf War to evict the Iraqi occupiers.
