Egypt slammed on Saturday attempts to drive a wedge between it and Kuwait, accusing some “spiteful” sides of stoking recent tensions.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry underlined the “strength of the fraternal relations between Egypt and Kuwait,” highlighting the “common struggles that saw both sides shed blood for each other.” This was an apparent reference to the October 1973 war and the 1991 Liberation of Kuwait.
It added that both Cairo and Kuwait are keen on developing their relations in a manner that achieves the interests of their people, but at the same time, it “rejected and condemned recent attempts on social media to drive a wedge between the two peoples.”
It slammed social media users for their attacks against religious figures and the leaderships of both countries, accusing “spiteful” sides of seeking to undermine the good relations between the two countries.
The Foreign Ministry issued its statement a day after the Kuwaiti embassy in Cairo denounced social media posts that called for burning the Kuwaiti flag. “Such acts gravely harm Kuwait and are rejected by it,” it said, warning that such a development may “negatively impact fraternal ties between the two countries.”
The mission added that such a “heinous act” was widely condemned among official and public circles in Kuwait and that it has carried out contacts with Egyptian officials to express its disappointment and condemnation.
A video posted on YouTube and circulated on social media showed an individual offering pedestrians 500 dollars in return for their burning of a Kuwaiti flag. Everyone refused and instead expressed their respect for the relations with the Gulf country.
The Kuwaiti embassy called on Egyptian authorities to take the necessary measures to deter such rejected practices and hold everyone responsible for the video to account. It urged them to put an end to practices that harm relations between the brotherly countries.
Relations between Cairo and Kuwait have been strained in recent months. In July, Kuwaiti authorities arrested a citizen for slapping an Egyptian worker, which had sparked uproar on social media in Egypt.
In March, campaigns against Egyptian workers in Kuwait flooded social media over the excuse that they may have been infected by the novel coronavirus.