Kuwait denies Iraqi charge of oil poaching

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- Kuwait's Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah denied Thursday Iraqi allegations that his country was stealing Iraqi crude oil.

"We haven't stolen anything. If you take from you own land it can't be stealing," Sheikh Sabah told Reuters.

Iraqi Oil Minister Amir Muhammed Rasheed was quoted on Thursday as accusing Kuwait of "practicing an act of sabotage against Iraqi oil fields by digging oil wells in a joint zone (straddling the border) in order to deplete Iraqi underground oil reserve."

Baghdad said it would take unspecified measures against Kuwait to stop what it called sabotage and theft from southern Iraq oil fields. Iraq made similar oil-theft claims before marching into Kuwait on August 2, 1990, which led to the Gulf War and international sanctions on Baghdad.

"They are stealing the oil," said Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf at the United Nations on Thursday.

The exchange underlined renewed tensions in the Middle East after the United States claimed that an Iraqi fighter jet flew over Saudi Arabia last week in a challenge to no-fly zones enforced by the United States and Britain.

Kuwait's Sheikh Sabah said that Iraq has been acting in an increasingly threatening manner by flying jets close to the Kuwaiti and Saudi borders. He said that Kuwait was on alert but did not expect any military action.

"Now they are starting to send their airplanes to violate the airspace (near) the border," he said. "Not only Kuwait's border but also Saudi Arabia's."

British Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain said on Thursday that Iraq would suffer if it takes military action on Kuwait.

"Iraq had better be warned in no uncertain terms that if they try to replay history, they will be badly hit," Hain said. "It is as simple as that."

Iraq for several years has attempted, mostly in vain, to entice fellow Arab nations to ignore U.N. sanctions and trade with Baghdad.

Kuwait's Sheikh Sabah predicted that the coalition led by the United States that repelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991 would be cohesive if Iraq does take up arms against Kuwait.

"We hope it will not reach the level of using force. But if the situation will call for using force, it will (come) not only from the United States, but all the GCC members," Sheikh Sabah said, referring to the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

"We think that the whole world will not allow one man to challenge it," Sheikh Sabah said.

Kuwait's foreign minister said the entire episode is to remind the Western world that Iraq is still a force. "The American elections will be very soon and they want to show that they are here," he said.

British Foreign Minister Robin Cook, attending the U.N. General Assembly along with most of the world's foreign ministers, said that London did not expect Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to pull an "October surprise" by withdrawing its oil from the market.

Iraq accounts for about 4 percent of world daily oil production of just over 75 million barrels.

"It's not going to do that," Cook said. "Saddam likes the money. He uses it for his own lifestyle, his own palaces, his own apparatus of repression and his own ambitions for weapons of mass destruction. That's where the money goes.

"I think you should resist the idea that we are at Iraq's mercy," Cook said, referring to the chance that Iraq will cut off oil exports.

Kuwaiti Oil Minister Saud Nasser al-Sabah said Thursday that Kuwait did not have the capacity to pump more oil, and that it couldn't meet its new oil production quota agreed earlier this week by OPEC in Vienna.

Hain of Britain said that he got a pledge on Thursday from Sheikh Sabah that Kuwait will try to use its influence with other oil-producing nations to increase world oil supply.

He said he knows that Kuwait is already producing oil to its capacity and cannot hike its production.

"It would not depend on what Kuwait could do itself," Hain said, "but much more what Saudi Arabia can do in addition to the extra barrels that OPEC has agreed to pump."

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, excluding Iraq, agreed over the weekend to raise production by 800,000 barrels per day beginning October 1 in an effort to lower oil prices. The OPEC pledge has so far not substantially lowered oil prices.

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