Burma plans embassy in Kuwait

A high-ranking delegation from the Burmese Foreign Ministry, led by Deputy Minister Maung Myint, recently visited Kuwait for preliminary discussions on the reciprocal opening of embassies in both countries, according to Rangoon-based diplomatic sources.

Burma established diplomatic ties with Kuwait on December 16, 1998. Kuwait was the 73rd country to establish diplomatic ties with Burma since the country won independence from Britain in 1948.

 Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah visited Burma in August and signed an agreement on economic and technical cooperation between the two countries.

Burma has been diplomatically isolated and the target of economic sanctions by the US and the European Union since the military's brutal 1988 crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators that left an estimated 3,000 people dead.

Burma has tried to counter-balance its pariah status among Western democracies by strengthening its diplomatic relations with China, Russia, India and now the Middle East.

Burma also resumed diplomatic ties with North Korea in April 2007. Relations between the two countries had been severed for 24 years after North Korean assassins in Rangoon launched a bomb attack on a high-ranking South Korean delegation of politicians.