Iran is our friend
Tehran (AFP): Kuwait's foreign minister yesterday called Iran a friend only days after US President George W Bush visited the Gulf and branded Tehran "the world's leading state sponsor of terror". "I can only speak on my government's behalf. My country knows who is our friend and who is our enemy and Iran is our friend," Sheikh Mohammed Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah said at a joint news conference with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.
Bush visited Kuwait on Friday at the start of a Gulf tour aimed at rallying the support of Arab allies against US archfoe Iran, which Washington has accused of supporting militias that attack its forces in Iraq. On Sunday Bush hit out at Iran in a speech in the United Arab Emirates, charging that Tehran had become "the world's leading state sponsor of terror" and, along with Al-Qaeda, the main threat to the region's stability. The United States accuses Iran of wanting nuclear weapons under the guise of pur
suing a civilian nuclear program, a charge vehemently denied by Tehran which says it wants to produce electricity for its ever-growing population.
Sheikh Mohammed's visit to Tehran aimed to resolve a decades-old dispute between the two countries over the controversial issue of their maritime boundary. "New formulas were discussed regarding the continental shelf between the two countries and it was agreed that both sides do a more exhaustive study to finalise it legally," Mottaki said.
This issue concerns the fate of the offshore Dorra gas field. In 1960 Iran and Kuwait granted concessions in the north of the field to the former Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Co - now part of BP - and Royal Dutch/Shell. The Dorra gas reserves are estimated at 200 billion cubic metres (7 trillion cubic feet).
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