Iraq–Kuwait relations occupied El-Samitah near the Kuwaiti border, which evoked an international crisis. The Iraqi forces eventually withdrew under Saudi pressure. In 1990, Iraq accused Kuwait of stealing Iraqi oil through slant drilling, however some Iraqi sources indicated Saddam Hussein's decision to attack Kuwait was made only a few months before the actual invasion. There were several reasons for the Iraq move, including Iraq's inability to pay more than $80 billion that had been borrowed to finance the war with Iran and also Kuwaiti overproduction of oil which kept oil revenues down for Iraq. The invasion started on 2 August 1990, and
Kuwait Airways will encounter difficulty in advancing, especially in fleet renewal, without the privatisation. Flights to Iraq were resumed in ; Kuwait Airways had discontinued services to the country in 1990 following the invasion of Kuwait. After a 17-year hiatus, the carrier resumed flying to Munich in . Also in July 2015, the airline restarted flights to Istanbul-Atatürk; the city had not been served for three years. Bangalore was added to the carrier network in . Kuwait Airways is wholly owned by the government of Kuwait, . Privatisation started being considered in the mid-1990s, in a period that followed the Gulf War