U.S. Put Pressure on Kuwait, Iran Charges
Iran said Sunday that the United States pressured Kuwait into ordering five Iranian diplomats expelled and charged that the Persian Gulf emirate is too weak to have made the move on its own.
Kuwait on Saturday ordered the five Iranians to leave the country within a week after accusing Iran of firing missiles at the Kuwaiti coast. Iran considers Kuwait an ally of Iraq. Kuwait says it is neutral.
Iran’s prime minister, Hussein Moussavi, said Kuwait is too weak to expel the five on its own and was only obeying “that which is dictated upon it by other governments,” according to Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency, monitored in Cyprus.
The Kuwaiti Cabinet on Sunday endorsed the expulsions and called Iranian threats to Kuwaiti territory “one of the most dangerous manifestations of escalation in the gulf region.”
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates condemned the acts against Kuwait but stopped short of naming Iran.
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