MPs file to quiz Kuwaiti premier over Iran 'bias'

KUWAIT CITY, (AFP) - Three opposition lawmakers Sunday demanded to question the Kuwaiti prime minister in parliament for allegedly harming national security by favouring good ties with Shiite Iran over Gulf Arab states.

The MPs also blame Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed al-Ahmad al-Sabah for damaging ties with Kuwait's Gulf Arab partners by failing to promptly dispatch troops to Bahrain to help crush Shiite-led protests.

The fresh grilling comes amid heightened sectarian tensions between the oil-rich Gulf state's Shiite minority and the Sunni majority over Bahrain, Iran and other issues.

Last week, several Shiite and Sunni MPs had a fistfight during a parliamentary session when a Shiite lawmaker described the two remaining Kuwaiti inmates in the US Guantanamo detention centre as "terrorists."

The quiz request was filed by radical Sunni Islamist MPs Mohammad Hayef and Waleed al-Tabtabai and independent lawmaker Mubarak al-Waalan, all of whom are staunchly opposed to Iran.

The MPs claim that Sheikh Nasser has been following a foreign policy that is closer to non-Arab Shiite Iran than to members of the Sunni-ruled Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), of which Kuwait is one of the six members.

In March, a Kuwaiti court sentenced two Iranians and a Kuwaiti to death and two others to life in prison after convicting them of forming a spy ring operating for Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards. Tehran denied the charges.

Kuwait has been rocked with a series of political crises since Sheikh Nasser, a nephew of the ruler, was appointed prime minister in 2006.

Since then Sheikh Nasser resigned six times and parliament was dissolved on three occasions.

Last week, parliament agreed to refer another grilling request against Sheikh Nasser to the constitutional court over suspicion it breached the constitution.

Youth activists also staged a noisy demonstration on Friday calling for the removal of Sheikh Nasser.