Kuwait City Tensions between the two countries increased further in July 1990, after Iraq complained to OPEC claiming that Kuwait was stealing its oil from a field near the border by slant drilling of the Rumaila field. In August 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and annexed Kuwait. After a series of failed diplomatic negotiations, the United States led a coalition to remove the Iraqi forces from Kuwait, in what became known as the Gulf War. On 26 February 1991, the coalition succeeded in driving out the Iraqi forces. As they retreated, Iraqi forces carried out a scorched earth policy by setting oil wells
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