Kuwait City: Kuwait today (June 29, 2004) announced the resumption of diplomatic relations with Iraq, severed since Saddam Hussein's forces invaded the Emirate in 1990.

Following the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi Government yesterday, "the State of Kuwait announces the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with its Arab Republic sister", a Kuwaiti Foreign Affairs spokesman said in a statement run by the official KUNA news agency.

Kuwait will send an Ambassador to Baghdad at a later date, the spokesman added, stressing that the move showed Kuwait's desire "to co-operate and co-ordinate (with Iraq) in the interests of the two fraternal countries and their peoples and to consolidate the foundations of security and stability in the region".

Kuwait, which served as a staging post for US and British forces during last year's invasion of Iraq which toppled Saddam, has established good relations with the Iraqi interim authority which succeeded his regime.

In making its announcement, Kuwait, which upto now had said it would not seek formal ties until security was restored to Iraq, was following the lead from Washington, which yesterday resumed diplomatic relations which had been cut in February 1991 at the time of the first Gulf War.