The Kuwait Olympic Committee (KOC) face the prospect of being unable to compete under their own flag at Rio 2016 after the IOC decided to suspend them following deadline to amend a new law in the Gulf country expired without the issue being resolved.

Sheikh Salman Sabah Salem Al-Humoud Al-Sabah, Kuwait's Minister of Information and Minister of State for Youth Affairs, claimed that the law was in line with the Olympic Charter and they had explained the situation to the IOC.

The IOC decision followed a similar decision by FIFA to suspend Kuwait because of the controversial law. 

A delegation from Kuwait met the IOC in Lausanne earlier this month and believed they had re-assured them about the law.

"The International Olympic Committee is demanded to prove the contrary [in order to justify the recent FIFA decision to bar Kuwait from international football] we will ask them (the IOC) to do we when we meet in Kuwait," Sheikh Salman told the Kuwait News Agency.

"The State of Kuwait is keen on cooperation and mutual respect with the IOC but the policy of setting conditions and deadlines and issuing three threats for a sovereign state is totally unacceptable."

It is the second occasion that the KOC have been suspended by the IOC, following a similar ban imposed in 2010 and lifted on the eve of London 2012. 

The country's Public Authority of Sport have also condemned the latest suspension, which they claimed was "plotted inside Kuwait and plotted abroad".

They claim that Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti who is head of the ANOC and the Olympic Council of Asia, which is based in Kuwait, should have done more to help them.

Sheikh Ahmad, however, claimed there was nothing he could have done to prevent what happened. 

"I'm very sad, upset," he told insidethegames here where he is attending the ANOC General Assembly, which is due to start tomorrow.

"They [Kuwait] were facing this before the last Olympic Games and now they have made the same mistake again.

"I'm not involved in local sport.

"Politics in Kuwait has played more of a part in this than sport."

Sheikh Salman has now invited representatives from the IOC to visit Kuwait to discuss the situation.

Last year Sheikh Salman was at the centre of controversy himself after he allegedly used his Government position to try to influence voters in the election for the President of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF).

Sheikh Salman was eventually beaten in the election by Mexico's Olegario Vázquez Raña, who had held the position since 1980.

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