Kuwait's media has been asked to soften anti-Baghdad rhetoric in a confidence building measure inspired by an Arab League reconciliation deal with Iraq.
The Kuwaiti state controls the official news agency KUNA, local television and radio but newspapers and other publications enjoy wide freedoms unmatched elsewhere in the Gulf Arab region.
The Kuwaiti editors held a meeting yesterday with acting prime minister and foreign minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah who said Kuwait was eager to test the deal reached at an Arab summit last week.
Kuwaiti journalists have noticed a change in Iraq's state-controlled media, with references being made to brotherly ties between the two peoples and neighbours.
To the surprise of many delegates, Iraq agreed at the Arab summit to the wording of a section dealing with the Gulf crisis, pledging not to repeat its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The two sides also agreed to end a war of words, while the summit rejected Washington's threat to attack Iraq under its declared policy of seeking to topple President Saddam Hussein.
Kuwait's cabinet discussed the summit accord during its weekly meeting on Sunday and also welcomed Iraq's release of a Kuwaiti taken at the border two weeks ago.
Kuwait called for the release of all prisoners, amounting to almost 600 people, taken during the Gulf War.