Remarks Following a Meeting With Prime Minister Nasir al-Muhammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah of Kuwait,
September 19, 2008

President Bush. Your Excellency, thanks for coming. Kuwait is a strategic partner of the United States, and our discussion today was befiting of our strategic partnership.

We talked about a lot of issues. One issue we talked about was Iraq. And I do want to thank Your Excellency for naming an ambassador to Iraq. It’s a recognition on your part that a stable and peaceful Iraq is in your interests. And we support those interests.

I also want to thank you for being such a good security partner in the region. I can remember fondly coming to Kuwait and going to our base there, and how appreciative our commanders and our folks based there were for the hospitality of your country.

We talked about the economic situation here in the United States, and I told His Highness—His Excellency I’m going to go give a speech here in a minute.

And all in all, it was a very good discussion. And I thank you for your friendship, and I welcome you to the United States.

Prime Minister Nasir. Thank you, Mr. President. On behalf of my delegation, I want to thank you for the hospitality, the warm welcome. The discussions that we have had here, Mr. President, concern all the international arena. Our people cannot forget the position that United States took—the leadership and the coalition forces to liberate Kuwait in ’91.

And since United States has become one of our allies in the region, the discussion that we have had is the mutual interests between both countries in all these fields. And we are happy; we are glad to see that everything is moving very, very well between the two countries.

Thank you again, and I bring the best wishes of the Amir, the Crown Prince, and the people of Kuwait. Thank you, sir, and the people of United States.

President Bush. Thank you, sir.

Note: The President spoke at 10:11 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White House. In his remarks, Prime Minister Nasir referred to Amir Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Sabah and Crown Prince Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Sabah of Kuwait.