Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari speaks during the fifth session of the Iraqi-Kuwaiti Joint Supreme Ministerial Committee in Kuwait City on Tuesday.

Iraq’s foreign minister denied on Tuesday that his government had anything to do with the kidnapping of a group of Qatari hunters in the south of the country this month.

“I deny categorically that this issue (of the kidnapping) has any relation to the Iraqi government,” Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari told reporters at a news conference with his Kuwaiti counterpart.

The Gulf Cooperation Council described the abduction as “an action that harms the bonds of brotherly relations between Arab brothers,” state media in another member, Saudi Arabia, reported on Tuesday.

“Not everything that exists on the ground (in Iraq) is there with the approval of the government …. there are security flaws that we must acknowledge and our enemies exploited the security shortcomings,” Jaafari said.

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