<p>The August 2 assault was rapidly met with a concerted international military response that pushed Saddam's forces out of the emirate and eventually led to his ouster by a US-dominated coalition in 2003.<br /><br />As a result of that invasion, Iraq continues to pay war reparations to Kuwait, and disagreements over the two countries' land and maritime borders persist.<br />"This was one of the most dreadful decisions he (Saddam) ever, ever took," Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told AFP.<br /><br />"Really, Iraq has been suffering from that decision ever since -- the sanctions, the (UN) Security Council resolution. Over the last seven years, I, as a foreign minister, have been struggling to get my country back to where it was before August 2nd."<br /><br />Since 1994, when the United Nations set up a reparations fund, Iraq has repaid USD 30.15 billion to Kuwait, with a further USD 22.3 billion in compensation still due.<br />Baghdad is required to put five per cent of its oil and gas revenues into the fund.<br />That is in addition to an estimated USD eight billion in bilateral debt and around USD one billion owed to Kuwait as a result of a court judgement over a dispute between the two countries' state airlines.<br /><br />Those obligations remain crippling to a country where infrastructure and the economy are in dire need of rebuilding after having been hammered by years of violence and sanctions.<br /><br />"Until Iraq achieves internal stability and the government is capable of achieving a unitary foreign policy... Iraq-Kuwait relations will remain a controversial subject," Massouma al-Mubarak, the chair of the Kuwaiti parliament's foreign affairs committee, told AFP.<br /><br />"The wounds are very deep," she added. "It is very difficult for us to forget, but we are trying to turn a new page in Kuwait-Iraq relations."</p>.<p>Crucial issues between the two countries remain unresolved, chief among which is the agreement of land and maritime borders which the United Nations officially demarcated in the early 1990s.<br /><br />While Saddam accepted those borders, set out in Security Council Resolution 833, the current Iraqi government has yet to do so, a decision described by Zebari as "political."<br />"I was hoping... to resolve this before the end of this year, to close this chapter," he said.</p>
<p>The August 2 assault was rapidly met with a concerted international military response that pushed Saddam's forces out of the emirate and eventually led to his ouster by a US-dominated coalition in 2003.<br /><br />As a result of that invasion, Iraq continues to pay war reparations to Kuwait, and disagreements over the two countries' land and maritime borders persist.<br />"This was one of the most dreadful decisions he (Saddam) ever, ever took," Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told AFP.<br /><br />"Really, Iraq has been suffering from that decision ever since -- the sanctions, the (UN) Security Council resolution. Over the last seven years, I, as a foreign minister, have been struggling to get my country back to where it was before August 2nd."<br /><br />Since 1994, when the United Nations set up a reparations fund, Iraq has repaid USD 30.15 billion to Kuwait, with a further USD 22.3 billion in compensation still due.<br />Baghdad is required to put five per cent of its oil and gas revenues into the fund.<br />That is in addition to an estimated USD eight billion in bilateral debt and around USD one billion owed to Kuwait as a result of a court judgement over a dispute between the two countries' state airlines.<br /><br />Those obligations remain crippling to a country where infrastructure and the economy are in dire need of rebuilding after having been hammered by years of violence and sanctions.<br /><br />"Until Iraq achieves internal stability and the government is capable of achieving a unitary foreign policy... Iraq-Kuwait relations will remain a controversial subject," Massouma al-Mubarak, the chair of the Kuwaiti parliament's foreign affairs committee, told AFP.<br /><br />"The wounds are very deep," she added. "It is very difficult for us to forget, but we are trying to turn a new page in Kuwait-Iraq relations."</p>.<p>Crucial issues between the two countries remain unresolved, chief among which is the agreement of land and maritime borders which the United Nations officially demarcated in the early 1990s.<br /><br />While Saddam accepted those borders, set out in Security Council Resolution 833, the current Iraqi government has yet to do so, a decision described by Zebari as "political."<br />"I was hoping... to resolve this before the end of this year, to close this chapter," he said.</p>