Middle East: Security

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

What is important is that the Kurds—and, indeed, some of the sectarian groups, or ethnic groups, in the area—understand about security. It is often insecurity that has driven many of these conflicts for dozens of years. Iran feels desperately insecure, often, in its region. The Kurds have often felt insecure because of the history of many nations, including Iran, that have set about them. So the first thing we should all do is seek to find security guarantees for many of these people, and in that way we can set the next process of resolving the problems between the different parts of the middle east.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the personal authority and experience he brings to this issue. Will he work with all our coalition allies to sustain our commitment to all the people of Iraq, most of whom would not welcome our abandoning them to the forces both heretical and now corrupt, not least in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps behind the Iranian revolution?

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend and I visited Iran as well, a long time ago, and he speaks a lot of sense. Britain’s focus has to be about how we can continue, over the long term, supporting Iraq and its people. It is a complex country with many different groups, and those differences have been exploited recently by Iranian-backed militia, which again, instead of helping those people, has actually led to misery. We must do what we can to capacity-build the Iraqi state so that they can make decisions for themselves.