KUWAIT CITY, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah received an invitation on Monday to attend the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh on Dec. 10, 2019.
Kuwait's Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Jarallah said on Monday evening that Kuwait hopes the Gulf summit would be represented at the highest level, expressing optimism about a near healing of the Gulf rift and resolving differences among Arabian "Gulf brothers."
Among these signs is the setting of date for the Gulf summit in addition to the 24th Arabian Gulf Cup 2019 hosted by Qatar with participation of the six member states of GCC, he explained.
In a meeting with local newspaper on Sunday, Kuwait's Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah said that the GCC summit would be very important for Gulf reconciliation and it could help usher in a period of positive change.
Kuwaiti experts expressed optimism about easing the Gulf crisis as a result of the summit.
In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, the former Kuwaiti Minister of Information Saad bin Tiflah said that there are positive signs about resolving the Gulf crisis, including some reports about the recent visit of Qatari officials to Riyadh.
According to Sami Al-Faraj, president of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies, Kuwaiti mediation will play a big role in easing the crisis during the Gulf summit.
He expected a kind of breakthrough, including improving relations between these countries, by stopping the media and diplomatic campaigns and allowing the citizens of these countries to move normally.
The fundamental solution to the Gulf crisis is to come to an agreement between the Gulf countries on their respective roles that each plays within the Gulf system, Sami Al-Faraj told Xinhua.
Kuwaiti political analyst Hussein Abdul Rahman affirmed that the Kuwaiti mediation is capable of reforming the Gulf region situation during this summit.
"The Gulf summit will be the beginning of solving the Gulf crisis," he told Xinhua, noting that "we have seen signs of a breakthrough in football stadiums in Doha, where the Gulf teams played in one spirit."
According to him, the Gulf summit is on its way to draw up a roadmap for the next phase in light of the tense situation in the region and the escalation of the crisis in Iraq and Lebanon.
However, Sami Al-Faraj ruled out that the upcoming Gulf summit will resolve the crisis once and resume relations between the Gulf countries to the previous era.
"From a strategic perspective, I see the reasons that led to the crisis still exist," he noted, adding that "the scars, the wounds, the repercussions of this crisis will remain and will not be solved in one day."
"I think this calls for more realism than excessive optimism to resolve the crisis," he said.
Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani missed the 39th Gulf summit last year hosted by Saudi Arabia, while he attended the 38th summit hosted by Kuwait in 2017 with the absence of other Gulf leaders.
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have been imposing a diplomatic and economic boycott on Qatar since June 2017 over allegations that the gas-rich Gulf country supports terrorism and interferes in their domestic affairs, which Doha has repeatedly denied.
