KUWAIT — The foreign ministry has summoned Iran’s ambassador after a high-level Iranian official implicated the emirate in the US drone attack that killed top general Qassem Soleimani, official news agency KUNA reported.

Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Jarallah expressed Kuwait’s “amazement” at the claim that one of its air bases had been among those used to carry out the Jan. 3 attack, KUNA said.

It said he was referring to a statement by Brig. Gen. Amirali Hajizadeh, aerospace commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

“MQ-9 UAVs (drones) were flying in the region (at the time of the attack) that had mostly taken off from Kuwait’s Ali Al-Salem” base, Hajizadeh told Iranian state television Thursday.

Jarallah told the ambassador, Mohammed Irani, that Kuwait had already denied any role in the deadly attack in Baghdad.

He said such a claim “risks damaging relations” between Kuwait and Iran.

Soleimani had been at the center of power-broking in the region for two decades as chief of Iran’s external operations Quds Force of the elite Revolutionary Guards. — Al Arabiya English