The official Philippine News Agency quoted Marcos as praising the results of the “short meeting” that he held with His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad on the sidelines of the summit held in Riyadh, the day before yesterday, between the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), reports Al-Rai daily.
Kuwait had suspended the issuance of entry and work visas to Filipinos last May due to the Philippines’ non-compliance with the labor agreement between the two countries, after a similar action taken by Manila months earlier.
During a meeting with the Philippine media, the Philippine President considered that the positive signs of resolving the dispute with Kuwait are one of the successes of his trip to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to attend the summit.
He added: “I tell our colleagues that this trip is worth it because we fixed the problem with Kuwait, and this is one of the successes that we can say and that we can record from this trip.”
Marcos said that it was agreed during the meeting on the necessity of working to restore relations between the two sides as they were, and to solve the existing problems, describing the meeting as “a very important development (…) because a few months ago, we were forced to ban sending workers to Kuwait. This will end and we will now return to normal with the Kuwaiti government,” according to what the media reported.