Bilateral Relations: Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

It has been a pleasure to listen to this extremely well-informed debate on the Kurdistan region. It is testament to the work of the all-party group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq that so many Members who have taken part in the debate have actually visited the region, learned so much about it and can speak with such breadth of knowledge. It is also interesting that Members have forged relationships with the region through the universities that they represent. We do not always sufficiently appreciate the importance of MPs building relationships with different parts of the world through local contacts and visits.

Before he had to leave, the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) made an important point about the regions of the UK. We have here Members from right across the UK. We must deal with Kurdish matters not just at the UK Government level in Whitehall; we MPs must make efforts in our communities and build personal connections. There are Kurds right across the UK, often studying. As we know from the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), in the long term, building strong links over a sustained period will help to create prosperity in Kurdish communities.

I must pay tribute to the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) for securing this debate. It is important that we recognise his service in the Royal Air Force in the 1990s. We must also pay tribute to the people of Kurdistan, who are so grateful for the commitment of the United Kingdom over the past 25 years. When I visited the region last June—I refer to my record in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I found that people were particularly grateful to former Prime Ministers John Major and Tony Blair. The latter has not been mentioned today, but he is extremely highly regarded in the region because of the part he played in safeguarding the role of Kurds in Iraq throughout an extremely difficult period.

We have heard about the progress made in the region. It must have been an extraordinary experience for the hon. Member for Colne Valley to visit a peaceful Kurdistan, after previously making a flying visit, if I may use that phrase. He will have seen the extraordinary progress in the country that I saw, and the appetite there for all things British. I must say to the Minister that the impression that I got—I am sure the Government will agree—is that the door is open and needs only a gentle push as far as UK universities, trade and cultural links are concerned. There can be a strong, vibrant relationship to the benefit of Kurdistan and the UK, if only we give that door a gentle push.

Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting the consul general to talk about the progress made even since I visited last June. It was good to hear that we are building better links. We must be conscious of issues such as immigration caps when we are talking about student visas. We can talk consensually about the importance of bringing Kurdish students to the UK, but we must recognise that if we are to impose rough caps, that might affect the ability of our universities to build close contacts with regions such as Kurdistan.

The co-chair of the all-party group, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), has contributed an enormous amount to the strong relationship between Parliament and the Kurdistan region, and we heard her depth of knowledge on the issue. I would like to pick up on what she said about the Domiz refugee camp, which I visited, as did a number of other Members, and where 75,000 people are living. When I visited, the environment was extraordinarily calm. I had a haircut there, which was very high quality indeed. A meticulous gentleman applied to my hair a strange substance that is not normally applied to it. The community there is working extremely hard in very difficult circumstances, and the UK Government are giving it a great deal of financial support, for which I pay tribute to them. Our consul general is playing an important role in assisting with that support, alongside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The Kurdistan Regional Government are also working hard to provide a strong base to support the huge number of refugees that are going into not just the camp but the rest of Iraqi Kurdistan.

[Meg Munn]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about the refugee camp. I am greatly concerned about the 13,000 children there, and the fact that there are only four schools. There are efforts to increase the number of schools so that these children, who have already suffered displaced lives and a great deal of trauma, can continue their education. Does he support my call for the Government to look specifically at supporting the provision of schools for those children?

[Ian Lucas]

Absolutely; I would certainly support that call. I visited a school in the camp and spoke to the head teacher. It was quite extraordinary to see the enthusiasm and interest that the children attending the school showed to visitors to the site. We are doing a good job on site, but because of the continuing pressure from the appalling events in Syria, I am afraid that the pressures on Iraqi Kurds in the camps also continue.

I echo my hon. Friend’s point about the fact that Iraq is housing huge numbers of refugees. For reasons I do not really understand, Iraq is not generally referred to as providing support for refugees from Syria, but there is huge pressure on Iraqi Kurdistan from Syrian refugees, and we are doing a lot there. We must recognise that whenever a statement is made.

I ask the Government, as the Labour party has done previously, to consider whether, in a very limited number of cases, they should offer refuge to individuals who have fled Syria and are now in places such as Iraq. There are people who have serious medical difficulties or particularly close family contacts here, and they could be offered direct refuge in the UK. We have pressed the Government previously on this issue. In a limited number of cases that option should be considered, because at present we are not offering any places to those individuals. We should consider doing so, and I ask the Minister to reflect on that.

We heard from the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) about the Anfal, which I heard about on my visit to Iraqi Kurdistan, when I met relatives of individuals who had disappeared in 1988. As I have said before in the House, I remember seeing a TV programme—I think it was “Newsnight”—on the Halabja attacks in the late 1980s, which has stayed with me for ever; it was very powerful indeed. I think we made a lot of progress in our discussions on this subject in the debates that we have had during the last year. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for the work that he did. I can report to Members here that after a debate that took place last year, I had some private discussions with him about trying to take this issue forward on a consensual basis—it is clearly not a partisan matter—and we would like to try to continue that process with the new Minister, who is here today.

I know that, as far as the Kurdistan Regional Government are concerned, the recognition of the genocide is a major issue and that there is a strong feeling in the country that there is not the level of international recognition that there should be, so the steps taken by the UK Parliament last year were welcome. They helped to inform the debate, which we need to take further at Governmental level. I am happy to continue the discussions in which the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire played such a positive role.

Of course, the co-chair of the all-party group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon, does not need any lectures from me about Kurdistan. I simply say to him that as a visitor to Kurdistan—I visited it for a limited period—I was fascinated by the region. It is such an important region, because it has played such an important role in the past 25 years in UK politics. In the context of current events in the middle east, it would be very valuable for all Members to visit Iraqi Kurdistan, whatever their position on it has been in votes in the past 10 years; I know that we have a number of different positions represented in Westminster Hall today. Visiting Iraqi Kurdistan makes a valuable contribution to one’s knowledge of the region, and visiting it would help to inform Members who have not been there about the progress of democracy in the middle east, because it is an important example of a place where progress has been made.

After all, when I was in Erbil, I had the longest political interview that I have ever had on the Rudaw television channel. It was a wide-ranging interrogation on policy across the middle east. I would love to have that on the BBC, but unfortunately the interview went on for longer than “Newsnight”; I think my interview lasted 50 minutes, whereas “Newsnight” has a 45-minute running time. As I say, there is progress in the region on democratic debate.

The citadel referred to by the hon. Member for Colne Valley is an extraordinary historic site. When one says to one’s constituents, “You should go to Iraq for a holiday”, there might be a certain amount of scepticism initially, but that citadel is the longest-occupied site on earth and it is an extraordinary place to visit. I am quite sure that in the future people will go to Erbil, and there is a strong view—is there not?—that we need to work towards introducing direct flights from the UK to the region, so as to facilitate that type of visit for our constituents. I am sure that that would be widely appreciated across the House, both for tourism and for business.

I am afraid that I will have to refer to my university in Wrexham, Glyndwr university, which as we speak is holding discussions with the university in Erbil about possible relationships between them. Again, that shows the appetite in the UK for building relationships with the Iraqi region of Kurdistan. There will be more contact between Iraqi Kurdistan and the rest of the world in the future. The region wants contact with the UK and its different regions. We really need to seize that opportunity and do the best that we can to ensure that we are right at the forefront in pushing at that open door that I referred to earlier.

The Iraqi region of Kurdistan is a very tough neighbourhood indeed. We must remember that it is bordered by Iran on one side and Syria on another, and that Turkey is to the north. Notwithstanding that difficult environment—it is such a difficult political environment, with so much violence, including the violence in the rest of Iraq—there has been real progress in the region, and that is quite extraordinary.

We need to help the Kurdistan Regional Government to build better relations with the Government in Iraq; relations between the two have been the source of some tension. It is also important that we recognise that those tensions continue, particularly over the pipelines that deliver oil from northern Iraq to Turkey. There is a continuing debate over that issue, and I hope that the UK Government will play a positive role in trying to build relations, especially in the context of the election later this year.

We have heard a great deal about the positive nature of the relationship between the region and the UK. I would like to flag up the issue of female genital mutilation, which is still an issue in Kurdistan. We can play a positive role in engaging on that issue with the Kurdistan Regional Government. I think that they would accept that it is an issue on which progress needs to be made. This is a country that is developing a democratic tradition. That has happened there very recently, and it is very important that difficult issues such as this one are addressed in their cultural context.

One of the important players in that process will be the Kurdistan diaspora community in the UK. That community is very important indeed, and they are very active and willing to engage with UK political representatives. I hope that they will engage with more and more MPs to try to get them to recognise the importance of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, and to get more of them involved in the all-party group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq. That group has achieved a great deal. We have heard about the work being done with universities and businesses locally as a result of the group’s work, and that can only be further developed by having more MPs involved with the group. I am not sure how many of my colleagues in the House will welcome this, but I encourage members of the Kurdish diaspora here to contact their local MP to try to get them involved in the group, because they will then learn about the progress made in the northern region of Iraq, and will also build better links between the UK and the region.

The positive picture that Members and I have painted this morning is testament to our good relations with the region, both under the previous Government and this Government. That picture is one of extraordinary progress. There are still opportunities there, and we need to build on them further. I think that this is an issue that there is not a big political divide over, and the positive picture of the UK in the Kurdistan region provides a massive opportunity for the UK. It is an opportunity that we need to seize.