Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions his Department has had with the (a) Iraqi and (b) Kuwaiti Government on border disputes on the waterway that separates Iraq and Kuwait.

Our Embassy in Kuwait have been closely monitoring the situation, particularly since late January 2017, and have been recently briefed by the Kuwaiti authorities. In February, our ambassador to Iraq raised this issue with the Foreign Minister of Iraq, the Kuwaiti ambassador to Iraq and the Deputy Chair of Basra Provincial Council. Throughout, the ambassador emphasised that Iraq and Kuwait should continue to work both bilaterally and with the UN to resolve this issue.