By NNN-KUNA,
United Nations : UN Special envoy for Iraq Staffan de Mistura on Friday said Kuwait’s reestablishment of full diplomatic relations with Iraq is a very important step, but Kuwait can further help Iraq by continuing the dialogue on the “painful” pending issues.
He told KUNA following a briefing to the Security Council on the situation in Iraq that dialgue between the two countries on debt relief, the missing Kuwaitis and property and the border demarcation should continue and that the UN can help.
“We can help in taking care of what have been now too long issues of small but important, painful reminder of the past,” he said.
Iraqi envoy Hamid Al-Bayati who described the visit by the UN high-level coordinator for missing Kuwaitis and property Gennady Tarasov to Baghdad last month as “successful” later clarified to KUNA that this was the first visit by the coordinator to Iraq.
“This is the first meeting. Also he met high-level officials who assured him of cooperation in order to close this file. We believe it is time to close all the files related to the invasion of Kuwait which took place a long time ago.
“We hope his visit will be able to solve many of the issues in order to close this file,” he said.
Tarasov is scheduled to present his bi-annual report on this file to the Security Council in mid-December.