In These New Times

Al-Manar TV

13/01/2009 A group of 21 Kuwaiti MPs said on Tuesday that former Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose term expired on January 9, was “not welcome” at a planned Arab economic summit next week in Kuwait City, criticizing his response to the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip.

The deputies in the 50-member house rejected his visit for the summit due to start on Monday as “undesirable”.

Abbas has shown “negative and weak stances over the Zionist onslaught on the Palestinian people besieged in Gaza,” the deputies said in a statement, urging the government to declare his visit to the oil-rich country as “unwanted”.

The 18-day-old Israeli offensive has killed more than 940 people and wounded over 4,300, and triggered a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished territory.