KUWAIT CITY, July 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Iraqis have fired several shots into Kuwait in protest against a metal barrier Kuwait is building along the border between the two countries, the Arab Times reported Thursday.

    A Kuwaiti official, who declined to be identified, was quoted assaying that the bullets were fired by a group of about 40 Iraqis demonstrating on the Iraqi side of the Kuwait-Iraq border on Wednesday.

    He said there were no injuries and the Kuwaiti border guards did not return fire.

    The official said the situation at the border was now "calm" and construction of the barrier, which aims to stop vehicles from illegally crossing the desert frontier, is ongoing.

    Hundreds of Iraqis had gathered Sunday and Monday at the border area of Umm Qasr to demand the project be stopped.

    Iraq's Basra Governor Mohammad Mosbah met with senior Kuwaiti officials late Wednesday and the two sides agreed to resolve the controversy through diplomatic means.

    Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 under the former rule of Saddam Hussein and annexed the oil-rich tiny kingdom, before driven out seven months later in the US-led Gulf War in 1991.

    The UN resolution in 1993 had set the 200-km-long land border and the maritime border between Kuwait and Iraq and UN peacekeepers patrolled the frontier until the US-led coalition invaded Iraq in 2003. Enditem