Open Border Eases Relations

As children, Fyhaa Ibrahim of Iraq and her Kuwaiti cousin, Sabbah Mahmoud al-Smak, were best friends.

Their high-pitched laughter rang out as they ran through tall date palms. Together, they spent days wandering the bustling suq, or marketplace, munching on sweets and dates.

The two friends mirrored the relationship between the people of Kuwait and southern Iraq, which has been close for centuries.

They two peoples speak the same dialect and share customs, values and tribal affiliations.

And that closeness remained even when national boundaries were established in 1922. People and goods moved fluidly back and forth across the border.

All of that ended when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The border was sealed, and the childhood friends, Fyhaa and Sabbah, grew apart.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, however, the border has reopened, and that has enabled Iraqi and Kuwaiti families, friends and business partners to become reacquainted with each other.

Fyhaa and Sabbah were reunited and grew to know each other again under the same palm trees. In December, they announced their engagement to be married.

"That time [of separation] has become just a story to tell," said Fyhaa. "My relationship with Sabbah will not be severed by wars anymore."

The two weren't the only ones to enjoy the benefits of the newly opened border.

"I rushed to Iraq to see my family and my friends," said Haki al-Zubaidi, an Iraqi who has lived in Kuwait for 30 years. "I haven't seen them since Saddam occupied Kuwait, and I missed my country and my city [Basra]," he said.

And Kuwaiti Mahmood Soud al-Nasir said, "I came to visit my friends in Basra because before I was unable to see them."

He, like others, seems able to separate the political from the personal. "I didn't hate Iraqis even after Saddam's occupation of our country," said Nasir.

Border guards who once prevented all cross-border movement are now co-operative.

"Many cars leave from Basra to Kuwait daily," said Lieutenant Colonel Nabil al-Faraj, the chief of Kuwait’s border control operation. "We don't stop them entering, and we welcome the re-establishment of the relationship. We hope it will be like before the occupation."

Iraqi border officers extend a similar welcome. "Kuwaitis are welcome in Iraq any time, without conditions, whether the visit is personal, commercial or for tourism," said Walaa Sari, a border police officer.

"We haven't prevented anybody from entering Iraq since the fall of Baghdad," said Sari, who began working soon after United States-led coalition forces entered Iraq.

Merchants are also happily resuming cross-border trade.

Kuwaiti commercial products or imports that Iraqis have not seen for more than a decade are flowing into the country, while smaller numbers of Iraqi goods are going to Kuwait.

Every day, trucks and cars loaded with new and second-hand furniture, household appliances and other merchandise file into Iraq.

Driver Malik Saad's truck is stuffed with children’s toys and furniture. The short distance from Kuwait City to major Iraqi centres makes for good profits, he says.

Just north of the border in Iraq, a tent city of traders sprawls as far as the eye can see.

The tantalising smell of apple-flavoured tobacco rises from nargilahs, the traditional water pipes, as merchants patiently await the arrival of goods from Kuwait.

Many products are delivered or purchased in the tent city and then moved further north into Iraq.

But not all is smooth. Iraqi and Kuwaiti traders are not yet completely familiar with each others' pricing structures. They often have to trust that their partners are quoting accurate prices and selling them decent goods.

Jumaa Khalaf, an Iraqi merchant, buys Kuwaiti goods from other Iraqis and sells them in Basra. He says he can only estimate what the price of goods should be. But because Kuwaiti products are so rare in the Iraqi market, they sell regardless of price.

Iraqi merchant Nasir al-Zargani agrees, saying it really doesn't matter what the going price as so long as his customers are as ignorant of prices as he is.

Customers are so eager to buy Kuwaiti products that they are willing to take risks.

Kuwaiti border guards recently stopped one Iraqi merchant, and discovered his truck was filled with orange juice and cream which had passed their expiry date. The Iraqi was forced to destroy his goods.

Dhiya K. Rasan is a trainee journalist with IWPR in Baghdad.