Egypt Contains Crisis with Kuwait after Holding Judicial Probe

The Nile River in Cairo. (Getty Images)
The Nile River in Cairo. (Getty Images)
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Egypt Contains Crisis with Kuwait after Holding Judicial Probe

The Nile River in Cairo. (Getty Images)
The Nile River in Cairo. (Getty Images)

Egypt succeeded in containing a crisis with Kuwait after the emergence of a video deemed offensive to the Gulf state.

In the video, an individual was shown offering pedestrians 500 dollars in exchange for burning the Kuwaiti national flag. All pedestrians turned down the offer, refusing to insult Kuwait.

The Egyptian judiciary probed the individual in the video. He explained that he did not seek to insult Kuwait, but rather wanted to show the strength of the relations between it and Egypt as demonstrated by how everyone rejected his offer.

He added that he sought to use the video to show how the Egyptian people cannot be lured by money to offend others. He said that the Egyptians chose the moral high ground despite an assault last month against an Egyptian worker in Kuwait.

The Egyptian judiciary verified that the person behind the video does not belong to any terrorist group and only sought to prove the strength of ties between the Egyptian and Kuwaiti people.

He has since been released.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri telephoned on Sunday his Kuwaiti counterpart Dr. Ahmed Nasser al-Mohammed al-Sabah to discussed bilateral relations.

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.



Iraq Will Not Be Just a ‘Spectator’ in Syria, Prime Minister Says

Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani delivers a speech during the Spain-Iraq business meeting in Madrid, Spain, 28 November 2024. (EPA)
Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani delivers a speech during the Spain-Iraq business meeting in Madrid, Spain, 28 November 2024. (EPA)
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Iraq Will Not Be Just a ‘Spectator’ in Syria, Prime Minister Says

Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani delivers a speech during the Spain-Iraq business meeting in Madrid, Spain, 28 November 2024. (EPA)
Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani delivers a speech during the Spain-Iraq business meeting in Madrid, Spain, 28 November 2024. (EPA)

Iraq will not act as a mere spectator in Syria where it believes groups and sects are victims of ethnic cleansing, Iraq's prime minister said on Tuesday, according to a readout from his office of a phone call to Türkiye's president.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who discussed the situation in Syria with Türkiye's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Iraq would exert all efforts to preserve the security of Iraq and Syria, according to the official readout of the call.

"What is happening in Syria today is in the interest of the Zionist entity, which deliberately bombed Syrian army sites in a way that paved the way for terrorist groups to control additional areas in Syria," the Iraqi prime minister's office quoted Sudani as saying.

Factions opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seized the city of Aleppo last week in their biggest advance in years. Iraq's Shiite-led government has close relations with Iran, which is an ally of Assad, and Iraqi militia fighters have fought on Assad's side in the war.

Two Iraqi security sources and a senior Syrian military source told Reuters on Monday that hundreds of Iraqi Shiite militia fighters had crossed the border late on Sunday to help Assad's army fight the opposition’s advance.

The head of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, which includes the major Shiite militia groups aligned with Iran, said no group under its umbrella had entered Syria.

The Syrian opposition fighters have said their advance over the past week met little resistance, in part because the most powerful of Iran's allies, Lebanon's Hezbollah group, had pulled its forces out of Syria to battle Israel in Lebanon.

Israel, which has long struck what it says are Iran-aligned military targets in Syria, has stepped up such strikes over the past 14 months as it battled Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.