Kuwait, which has called for a halt to bloodshed in Syria, said on Sunday it has no plans to expel the Syrian ambassador as demanded by MPs and protesters.

"The Syrian ambassador is here and he will stay in accordance with diplomatic agreements," foreign ministry undersecretary Khaled al-Jarallah told reporters.

Prominent Syrian liberal poet and writer Adonis urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down, but called on the opposition to adopt a strict secular ideology, in comments published Friday.

"President Assad should do something. If I were in his place, I would leave the presidency," Adonis said in an interview with Kuwait's al-Rai newspaper.

The Gulf state of Kuwait on Friday urged a halt in Syria's deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters and called for dialogue and "true reforms" to end the crisis.

"The state of Kuwait expresses its extreme pain for the continued bloodshed among the brotherly Syrian people," said a statement by a foreign ministry official cited by state news agency KUNA.

Kuwait has freed nine Iraqis who were jailed over a failed plot to assassinate former U.S. president George Bush senior in 1993, al-Anbaa newspaper reported Thursday.

Quoting an unnamed security official, the daily said that the Kuwaiti authorities had decided to deport the men to Iraq following a visit by officials from Baghdad.

Kuwait on Monday invited bids from local and international investors to buy a stake in Kuwait Airways as part of a privatization process to turn the loss-making airline into profit.

The privatization committee of Kuwait Airways said in a statement that interested parties should submit their "expression of interest" to participate in the bidding for 35 percent of the airline.

A U.N. panel has approved more than $1 billion in compensation payments for victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The U.N. Compensation Commission says the money will go to five companies and four government or international bodies. It did not disclose the identities of the claimants Thursday but said all are in Kuwait.

Kuwaiti naval forces on Saturday ended a mission to secure Bahrain's maritime border they began in March amid a crackdown on Shiite protesters, the official KUNA news agency reported.

"The Kuwaiti naval task force in the Kingdom of Bahrain ended today (Saturday) its mission to contribute to the protection of the maritime border of Bahrain and securing it in cooperation with the Bahraini navy, which began in March," KUNA said.

Media reports have stated that the indictment in the murder case of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri includes the names of four suspects: Mustafa Badreddine, who is close to Hizbullah, Salim Ayyash, Hassan Aneissy, known as Hassan Issa, and Assad Sabra.

Born in 1963 in the southern town of Harouf, Ayysah is a Civil Defense volunteer and a member of Hizbullah.

Kuwait's parliament on Wednesday passed a deficit budget for the 2011-2012 fiscal year projecting the highest spending in the OPEC member's history amid warnings the country's future is at risk.

Thirty-nine MPs voted for the budget while 20 were opposed.

Kuwait's Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) has given the green light for two long-stalled oil mega projects worth more than eight billion dinars ($29 billion), a Kuwaiti daily reported on Tuesday.

Citing unidentified oil sources, the Al-Jarida newspaper said the SPC approved the building of a new state-of-the-art refinery and the upgrading of two of three existing refineries to raise output and produce cleaner products.