Kuwait: The latest legal hurdle to allowing Palestinian teachers to take up posts in Kuwait has been cleared after the Kuwaiti interior ministry said that it had resolved the issue of granting them the required residence permits.

The education ministry last month said that it would be recruiting hundreds of Palestinians to teach Mathematics and science in its schools. The teachers would be hired from Palestine or locally from the Palestinian community in Kuwait.

The decision puts an end to a ban on recruiting Palestinians to work in Kuwait that was imposed in 1990 following the invasion of the country by the Iraqi regime of President Saddam Hussain and the stances of the Palestinian authority led then by Yasser Arafat that Kuwait regarded as supporting the Iraqi army’s move.

However, as the education ministry announced its decision to end the hiatus, the Kuwaiti interior ministry said that the Palestinian passport was not enough to grant them the residence permit that will allow them to stay and work in the country.

On Wednesday, Kuwaiti daily Al Rai reported that Shaikh Mazen Al Jarrah, the Interior Assistant Undersecretary for Citizenship and Passports Affairs, said the solution was to request Palestinians to present their passports as well as their laissez-passers when they apply for the residency permits.

“We need the laissez-passer because it allows us to deport the expatriate home in case he breaks the laws of Kuwait,” he said. “It is the guarantee that we need as a security department so that we do not face the issues we faced when dealing with Palestinians carrying Syrian, Jordanian or Egyptians documents who were not, upon their deportation from Kuwait, accepted back by the countries that gave them the documents.”

Al Jarrah said that all teachers to be recruited would undergo the routine security check before they are allowed to go to Kuwait.

“We need to make sure they had not been deported earlier or banned from entering Kuwait; we also need to check if there are any legal or health issues that would not allow them to enter Kuwait.”