Technical reasons behind closure of Kuwaiti-Saudi oilfield - Jarallah

RIYADH, Oct 26 (KUNA) -- Undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry Khaled Al-Jarallah stated Sunday that "pure technical reasons" were behind the decision to stop oil production from joint Al-Khafji oilfield in the divided zone between Kuwait and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
"Halt of oil production in the divided zone is due to pure technical, rather than political, reasons," Al-Jarallah told reporters after his participation in the 12th session of the committee in charge of following up the implementation of Gulf Cooperation Council's joint action resolutions.
He, however, admitted the two countries have different viewpoints over the issue.
"Relations between the two sisterly countries are too strong to be impacted by the difference in views over the joint zone (divided zone) and the joint production and its decisions." He argued that Kuwait and the Saudi Arabia could resume production from the divided zone till technical matters are addressed.
"The wisdom of the leaders of the two countries and love between the two people are sufficient to contain these issues." He explained that "our brothers in the Kingdom want to carry out maintenance and environment-related works," adding that "the Kuwaiti side knows and understands these measures." "We are totally confident that production will be back to normal when these technical reasons vanish." On the pan-GCC disputes, Al-Jarallah unveiled that an operation room has been formed to contain any emerging differences or disputes among GCC states.
He went on to say that the Gulf differences as numerous.
Al-Jarallah added that these differences are the result of huge and continued GCC activities.
He expected that the Saudi, UAE and Bahraini ambassadors would return to Doha and pan-GCC harmony would return shortly.
On the joint action committee meeting, Al-Jarallah said that the meeting was "positive and fruitful" and a wide array of important issues relative to the joint action have been tackled.
He pointed out that the committee has agreed on a proposal to set a media campaign to acquaint Gulf people with the activities and achievements of the Gulf Cooperation Council. (pickup previous) yms.ibi