Kurdistan Region in Iraq

Debate between Jack Lopresti and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered bilateral relations with the Kurdistan region in Iraq.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. It has been nearly two years since our last debate on bilateral relations with the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The political context has changed dramatically and is now improving quickly for the Kurds and for Iraq more widely.

When we last debated this matter, we were weeks away from a referendum on the principle of eventual and negotiated independence from Iraq. I supported the referendum, whereas the all-party parliamentary group for the Kurdistan region in Iraq, which I chair, broadly took a neutral position but supported the Iraqi Kurds’ right to self-determination. The APPG sent observers to the referendum, including the former UK security envoy, Sir Simon Mayall, who disagreed with the referendum. We observed it in Irbil, Kirkuk and Slemani on 25 September 2017. It was clearly a joyous and colourful day, and the result was also clear: a 93% vote for independence on a 72% turnout.

Nothing changed much on 26 September, the day after the referendum, and the Kurds hope to keep negotiating with Baghdad—maybe not for full statehood, but for confederation or genuine federalism. The referendum was a reaction to the failure of federalism and the feeling that the Kurds could no longer rely on Baghdad, which had grown increasingly hostile to them. After the referendum, Baghdad quickly realised these fears by blockading the airports for six months and issuing punitive diktats to stop international money transfers. Worse than that was its use of the army to seize Kirkuk—that violated the constitution, which bars the use of the military to settle internal conflicts. Some 100 peshmerga were crushed to death by Iraqi army tanks and Iranian proxy militia, using the same tanks that were sent there to help deliver the defeat of Daesh.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and I am following his speech with great interest. Given the fact that if it had not been for the Kurds, Daesh would have been all over Iraq, does he agree that the reaction of the Iraqi Government was even more extraordinary? When the Iraqi army was in full flight, it was only the Kurds who prevented Kirkuk from being taken by Daesh, and they also saved Irbil. Without the Kurds, Daesh would probably still be in control of Iraq.

[Jack Lopresti]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the Kurdish peshmerga saved Iraq. When the Iraqi army dumped its weapons and ran, the peshmerga took up arms and helped contain Daesh. They were then instrumental in pushing them back. I will come on to that later in my remarks.

As my hon. Friend just said, Kirkuk had been saved by the peshmerga in 2014, but Kirkuk turned against the Kurds after the referendum. Their language was banned and their flag torn down, and Shi’a militia displayed photos of Ayatollah Khomeini in the governor’s office where we met Najmaldin Karim, who only just escaped with his life thanks to an American tip-off. Arson, rape, murder and extortion fuelled a mass exodus of Kurds from Kirkuk, and the situation there is not yet back to how it was in the past. I ask the Minister to make it clear that Kirkuk and other territories are still disputed and should be subject to article 140 of the 2005 Iraqi constitution, which promised resolution of the Kurds’ final status by 2007. I ask the Minister to encourage the UN mission in Iraq to make that a much bigger priority.

The Iraqi forces then sought to invade the Kurdistan region but were repulsed at several battles. France, Germany and the Holy See broke the diplomatic blockade by sending an invitation to the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Nechirvan Barzani, who was able to transit via the land border—obviously the airports were out of use. Thankfully Baghdad backed down, and the KRG has parked the referendum result for now. I put on record that whatever the tactical or strategic wisdom of the referendum, I am disgusted by Baghdad’s violence, which was carried out, ironically, in the name of upholding a constitution that it had flouted. Its opening article states that Iraq is a “voluntary union”.

Fortunately, the supposed strongman in Baghdad, Haider al-Abadi, lost the premiership. His successor, Adel Abdul Mahdi, who once fought alongside the peshmerga, seems to be a much more reasonable character. A host of positive measures have now been agreed. Stranded oil in Kirkuk will eventually be piped via Kurdistan, and there seems to be a deal in the offing that finds a third way between total Kurdistani or Iraqi control of Kurdistani oil. Some will be sold by Baghdad in return for guaranteed salary payments to KRG civil servants and peshmerga, and some will be sold by the KRG. Internal customs posts are being demolished, which means that Shi’a militia can no longer extort duties and that Kurdistan can again become a dynamic gateway from the world to Iraq.

I think that is a positive and a potentially win-win position for all sides. Baghdad and Irbil are finding myriad ways to rebuild their relations, and we can do much more to make a strong KRG within a unified and fully federal Iraq. The Kurds might one day seek independence, as is their right, but not for now and perhaps not for a very long time.

The Minister will know that the UK is highly respected in Kurdistan. Many political leaders hold British passports, English is the second language and there is a strong Kurdish diaspora here in the UK. Four Kurdish universities teach only in English, and our active consul-general, Martin Warr, ably flies the flag and looks after and promotes our interests there. I praise the work of the British Council.

The UK Government are assisting the KRG’s reform programme by encouraging a modern Finance Ministry and the professionalisation of the peshmerga. I pay particular tribute to our servicemen and women at the Zorbash base in Irbil for their work. I visited their camp on two or three occasions and have always been impressed by their professionalism and what they are doing to help train the peshmerga in things like counter-improvised explosive device measures and how to train their own troops and keep a cohesive military force.

Historic Battlefields

Debate between Jack Lopresti and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank and pay tribute to my very good friend and constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), for securing this important debate and, predictably, for an interesting and brilliant speech.

I am an ardent lover of battlefields and their powerful history. Whenever I travel to Europe and the middle east, for instance, I invariably end up looking for an historic battle site. I enjoy searching for them and relish finding them. They are inspirational places of heroism, honour and sacrifice. The United Kingdom has a wonderful native array of battlefields from across the span of history. Historic England lists 47 battlefields on its national heritage list, but the Battlefields Trust calculates that there are more than 500 battlefields or sites of conflict across the United Kingdom. They range from the obvious—castles and city walls—to culturally important targets of Viking raids, such as monasteries and ports, and from well-defined battle sites to more vaguely understood sites where there is record of a conflict.

Indeed, Little Solsbury Hill, overlooking Bath—about 12 miles from my constituency—has been identified by historians as a possible site for the battle of Badon Hill, in which, during the 5th century, a British Arthur-like figure led the resistance to the Saxons invading from the east. It is a beautiful site and it is well worth a walk to the top of the hill.

The castles and cities that saw important sieges and struggles, from the Norman conquest, through the wars of the roses and into the civil war, are already well protected from inappropriate development or destruction. However, although battlefields are just fields, they are culturally significant and are often filled to the brim with interesting and vital archaeological remains, but as we saw with the recent proposal to build on part of the site of the battle of Bosworth, people do not always treat them as valuable, historic sites.

More than that, battlefields have a number of concerns that built history does not, and it is not only the physical location of a battlefield that needs protection. Visitors and researchers alike can gain a wealth of information from visiting the site of a battle. To truly preserve them, we need to preserve the topography, the fields of view and the setting of the field. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood said, all those features were of great importance to the armies and commanders who fought on the field, and all are of interest to anyone seeking to understand how and why they fought where they did and the impact of territory and strategic points. As Winston Churchill said, one must “tread the terrain” to really understand a battlefield.

That is true of Landsdown Hill, the closest of the Historic England battlefields to my constituency. The 1643 battle there was a key part of the parliamentary defence of Bath, and so the whole strategic defence of our capital. Royalist forces and Cornish pikemen sought to force parliamentarian forces from the hill. I hope the parliamentarians here are pleased to hear that they failed against the steep slope and the protected position that parliamentary forces held on the top of the hill. Both sides retreated under darkness but, importantly, Bath was saved.

There is already a monument to Sir Bevil Grenville—erected before enlisted soldiers were commemorated—but the value of the battlefield is much greater than just the monument. To understand the history of Lansdown Hill, one needs to be able to see that it overlooks Bath, how steep the ascent was for men who had spent the day harassed by fast-moving cavalry and how easy it was for armed men to shelter at the top of the hill.

Lansdown Hill is not at any immediate risk. Historic England’s entry on the national heritage list for the hill makes for reassuring reading:

“The landscape of 1643 had much in common with that of today… Two key viewpoints are publicly accessible and a complete circuit can be achieved from public highways and footpaths.”

That is what the protection of battlefields has to look like: not only access to a restricted section of history, but freedom to enjoy and experience historic landscapes as they were used by the people—the men—who literally put them on the map.

The case of Bosworth Field is shocking not only because of the potential ruination of a battlefield, but because of the key role that that particular battle played in our nation’s story, and because it ignored the warnings of recent history. As my hon. Friend said, any building on recognised battle sites will disturb archeologically important remains, whether bodies, weapons or just material evidence of the armies that fought there. That not only is a risk to academic research into these battles, but will damage education across the school system. The new history GCSE encourages children to understand our nation’s history better and includes a requirement to study a local historic site, explicitly including battlefields.

I hope that hon. Members will forgive me, because I have cut a lot out of my speech. I hope that the battlefield at Bosworth remains protected and undisturbed. I also very much hope that the Minister will acknowledge that some larger good could come out of this, with developers and councils all across the country coming to value our incredible heritage more and understanding why it has to be preserved.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to the first of the Front-Bench spokespeople. The guideline limits for speeches are five minutes for the Scottish National party and for Her Majesty’s Opposition.

Hezbollah’s Rocket Arsenal: Southern Lebanon

Debate between Jack Lopresti and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

Yes, I absolutely agree, and I hope that the Minister will relay to the Home Office the concerns that have been raised about that here. As we have discussed, Hezbollah does not see a difference between a military and a political wing. Very distinguished international bodies have banned Hezbollah outright and have proscribed it as a terrorist organisation, including the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, the Arab League and the Gulf Co-operation Council. Frankly, we should join them.

Before I took those three helpful interventions from distinguished colleagues, I was in the middle of quoting the High Level Military Group report, which continues:

“There is nothing predetermined in strategic life, but the new configuration of forces in the region could lead to a new war that, because of the regional dynamics and new security imperatives, will be much more violent and destructive than the previous ones.”

We have been warned.

In case I get distracted during the rest of my contribution, I will go on to the solutions that the High Level Military Group outlines. Having extensively researched the subject, including through visits on the ground, it states that

“our assessment is that a new and grave conflict is only a matter of time, and the international community must act to help prevent it.”

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend in mid-flow, but by drawing attention to the financial backers of Hezbollah and Hamas—the Iranians—whose mission seems to be to create mayhem, chaos and murder in the middle east, should we not send a message, as strongly as possible, that Iran’s malign and wicked influence in the region is a threat to peace and we will not tolerate it?

[Mr Hollobone]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Iran is the bully in the playground. According to the High Level Military Group, Hezbollah is

“an Iranian creation that sits as the crown jewel in Iran’s regional strategy of jihadi revolutionary warfare”.

In short, it is

“the most powerful non-state armed actor in the world.”

It is potentially more lethal than ISIS, and it is all backed and funded by Iran.