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Iraq ready to cooperate with Kuwait on searching for missing persons Friday, 07-Jan-2000 10:00AM DUBAI, Jan 7 (AFP) - Iraq is seeking to provide Kuwait with information on about 600 people who disappeared during its seven-month occupation of the emirate, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf said Friday, signalling an apparent change of policy on missing persons. Sahhaf told the popular Qatar-based Al-Jazira satellite television channel that 29 cases had already been solved. "We have provided all the information we have," he said, adding: "We still have to give information about 297 missing persons, and complete our information on another 301." Iraq has until now publicly taken the line that although it took some Kuwaiti prisoners when it was driven out of the emirate at the end of the Gulf war in February 1991, it lost track of them during a Shiite Muslim rebellion in the south of the country which broke out immediately afterwards. Sahhaf said the Kuwaitis had been given the files of 1,500 missing Iraqis, "but so far they have not provided any information about a single one." He blamed Kuwait for "politicising" the question of prisoners "as part of their policy of hostility towards Iraq." "That will not give results," he said. He called on Kuwait to continue the investigation into the issue as part of the tripartite committee of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, that meets under the auspices of the Red Cross. However, since the US and British air strikes on Iraq in December 1998, Baghdad has boycotted all meetings of the Red Cross committee, saying it will not take part as long as Britain, France and the United States -- all permanent members of the UN Security Council which has imposed sanctions on Baghdad since its 1990 Kuwait invasion -- are invited. Kuwait on December 31 pressed Iraq to cooperate fully on the question of missing persons at a forthcoming meeting in Geneva. A spokesman for Kuwait's committee on the disappeared said Baghdad should participate in a Red Cross-led meeting on February 7 "if the Iraqi government is serious about the matter." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- Get great offers on top-notch products that match your interests! Sign up for eLerts at: <a href=" http://clickme.onelist.com/ad/elerts1 ">Click Here</a> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Iraq List is member of Sindbad Communications' Media Group Iraq_L unsubscribe: mailto:Iraq_L-unsubscribe@onelist.com -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full archive and list instructions are available from the CASI website: http://welcome.to/casi