Kuwaiti warplane enters Iraqi airspace: Safwan authorities
Debate over revoked citizenships continues
Iraqi authorities said a Kuwaiti military plane entered Iraqi airspace over Safwan in Basra governorate and broke the sound barrier, terrifying residents of the area. Safwan authorities asked the Kuwaiti government to 'make an apology' to residents of the area for causing them a scare. Kuwait is currently hosting a military exercise along with American and GCC forces, but it was not clear whether the incident took place as part of the drill or not. Kuwaiti authorities could not immediately be reached for a comment on the subject.
In other news, Iraqi Cabinet Secretary General Mahdi Al-Allaq discussed with Kuwait's Ambassador to Iraq Salem Al-Zamanan the process of rebuilding areas liberated from the Islamic State (IS). A statement said that the Kuwaiti ambassador handed the secretary general a list of mobile schools in displaced camps, and list of schools financed by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development in several Iraqi areas.
Revoked citizenships
A governmental committee discussing the issue of nationality revocations held its first meeting recently that was chaired by Amiri Diwan advisor Ali Al-Rashed. It agreed on the mechanism of its work and allowed those whose nationalities were revoked to contact the panel through a website. Informed sources said there are plans to allow all those with revoked nationalities since 1980 to plead their cases, adding that the only cases that can be discussed are those concerning nationalities that were revoked according to administrative procedures, and not those related to state security, which means the door will be closed to many cases expected to be discussed. Sources said priority will be given for nationalities revoked recently, such as those of former MP Abdullah Al-Barghash, Saad Al-Ajmi and Nabil Al-Awadhi.
In related news, MP Khalid Al-Shatti accused fellow lawmakers he described as "those with shining slogans" of working to "legitimize forgers and protect dual citizens by amending the nationality law." Shatti said that the nationality law is among the sensitive issues being discussed by the National Assembly, saying that het law was issued in 1959, three years before the constitution. "It is rejected to have a systematic attack on the nationality law, to a point where an MP introduces a new law - and what is worse - he calls it the 'national identity protection law'," he charged. "There are bedoons (stateless) in Kuwait and even if I sympathize with them over their rights and hope their issue is resolved, the matter is much bigger than this issue, because the amendment aims at protecting forgers, and this is dangerous because it is a clear violation of national identity and protects the corrupt," Shatti added.