Abbas makes groundbreaking visit

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has made a groundbreaking visit to Kuwait, the first by a Palestinian leader in more than 20 years. On 15 April, Abbas officially reopened the Palestinian embassy in the Kuwaiti capital, closed in 1990 because of Palestinian support for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)’s decision to support Saddam Hussein’s invasion, by voting against a Cairo summit resolution calling for an Iraqi withdrawal, was disastrous for the PLO and the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian expatriates based in Kuwait.