KUWAIT: Informed sources said it was agreed between members of the parliamentary interior and defense committee and Interior Minister Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled Al-Sabah to hold a meeting at the end of the month to discuss the new residency law, new mechanisms to grant visit visas and the rules of issuing residency permits.

Sources said Sheikh Talal told MPs he is ready to attend the meeting, adding the government's amendments to the new residency law are ready and will be sent to the National Assembly soon, where they will be discussed by the interior and defense committee.

The sources said the minister told MPs that restricting residencies is the title of the new law, and fees will be tripled. Amendments to visit visas will be issued in January along with doubling existing fees, with fewer categories able to obtain visas. Sheikh Talal said strict security campaigns will continue against residency violators, adding that isolating areas that are full of expatriates is highly possible to hunt for violators.

Sheikh Talal told MPs that the new residency law includes a five-year residency permit, as it was in the draft law that was sent to the previous Assembly, but this permit is not for investors, businesspeople or children of Kuwaiti women. But he said this item is left for MPs to discuss with the government in case they want to amend or cancel it.