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Foreign Affairs and Defence

I would say that it was a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood), and I was not going to talk about Afghanistan, but I have to pick up on the point about money spent on women in Helmand province. One issue that I picked up when I was there was that money was being spent on widows. Without a man to support them, in their community they have nothing. The projects that I saw are training women to set up their own businesses. Micro-finance is enabling them to be respected in their community and to bring money into that community. That is the future of Afghanistan, so I would not say that that money was wasted. To come back to what I had planned to talk about, like most hon. Members, I attended a Remembrance day service in my constituency yesterday. The poppy is symbolic of the famous battlefields of the first world war: the Somme, Paschendale, Ypres. In some ways, it was more simple then. There was a clear enemy, a real threat of physical invasion, one side ranged against the other, trench warfare and a war of attrition, in which each side sustained the most horrendous losses—20 million deaths, civilian and military. World war two was even worse. Over 100 million soldiers were fighting across the world and the casualties were even greater—estimated at over 70 million, civilian and military. However, it was still nation states against nation states. Even the more recent Falklands conflict was nation state versus nation state, an actual invasion of sovereign territory and an easy concept for the British people to understand and get behind. In contrast, today's action in Afghanistan is much more complex, much less black and white. There is not a direct threat of invasion but an indirect threat to our security through terrorism. It is not nation state against nation state, but a coalition of forces supporting the elected Afghan Government in order to prevent the country from slipping back into a base for terrorism with which to threaten us. Iraq is more complex still. I do not intend to go back into the whys and wherefores of how we got into the situation, except to say that I have a sizeable Kurdish community in my constituency and the Iraqi Kurds suffered the most under the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein and had been calling on us in the west for years to rid them of that evil dictator. In the Gracious Speech, Her Majesty stated that the Government will work closely with the Government of Iraq"““to deliver security, political reconciliation and economic reconstruction.””" We need to leave behind the arguments about the invasion and focus on the here and now, as Iraq will continue to be a major issue in British and western politics for many decades to come. Calling for troops out now is too easy and does a disservice both to the good work being done by our servicemen and women stationed there and to the Iraqi people. All that the majority of people hear about Iraq is blood, bombs and failure, but while of course that is a large part of the picture, there are other facets of modern Iraq. We should not forget the emergence of a plethora of democratic political parties, and elections in which more people have participated than in the UK. We should also not forget the emergence of a new independent civil society and chiefly the renaissance of the labour movement. Trade union membership has increased from virtually hundreds to hundreds of thousands in four years—probably the biggest single growth of trade unionism in the world. Those unions are organised on non-sectarian lines and wish to contribute to a growing federal and democratic Iraq after nearly four decades of fascist-type rule under the Ba'ath and Saddam. In addition, there is the exemplary success of the Kurdistan region in Iraq, which I aim to visit in the next few months. Kurdistan today is relatively prosperous, with a more developed economy than other parts of Iraq—unsurprising perhaps, given its relative security. The region has a young and increasingly prosperous population of nearly 4 million people, seven universities, two of which teach exclusively in English, and a returning diaspora providing a skilled work force with English as a second language. The relative security and stability of the region has allowed the Kurdistan regional government to sign a number of investment contracts with foreign companies, and in 2006 we saw the first new oil well drilled in the Kurdistan region since the invasion of Iraq. We should not forget that that region suffered terribly under Saddam's brutal regime. It was on the receiving end of the Anfal campaign of the late 1980s, where thousands of civilians were killed during chemical and conventional bombardment. Between 100,000 and 200,000 Kurds lost their lives and some 2,000 villages were destroyed. They have been able, since what people here in the UK commonly call the invasion and what the Iraqi Kurds commonly call the liberation that came in 2003, further to rebuild the region with more democratic and unified institutions, a thriving economy and external investment, and their leaders are making a massive contribution to holding Iraq together. That is not an easy task. We have only to look at the Kirkuk situation. Kirkuk is seen as a historic part of the Kurdistan region, but Saddam forcibly expelled many Kurds from the city and settled it with his supporters. It is one of the most bitter issues in Iraqi politics. However, it has been agreed that there should be a referendum by the end of this year, although it may well run into next year. Kirkuk is an oil-rich city and I note that the Kurdistan regional government has committed itself to sharing the oil revenues from the area, as other Iraqi oil resources are to be shared, roughly on a per capita basis. I hope that the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will add his weight to the calls for the agreement on Kirkuk to be implemented. I was pleased that the Secretary of State for Defence found time in his schedule to visit Kurdistan recently. He stated:"““The Kurdistan Region shows what can be achieved when people cooperate and work together. This is a very strong example for the rest of Iraq. With better security, the rest of Iraq can follow this model.””" I wholeheartedly agree. President Masoud Barzani praised the Secretary of State's visit, saying that it came at an opportune time. He thanked the UK for its role in the liberation of Iraq. Regarding the current tension between Turkey and the PKK, the President called for brotherhood between Turks and Kurds. He said:"““Military action to solve the current tensions between Turkey and the PKK will benefit no one. We believe that only dialogue can secure a long lasting solution."" In an earlier meeting between the Secretary of State and Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, the Prime Minister thanked the British leadership and the people for the important role that they have played in Iraq since 2003. Prime Minister Barzani emphasised that Turkey was an important trading partner and that the Kurdistan regional government was ready to do whatever it could to defuse tensions. The Kurdistan regional government does not support the actions of the PKK and it believes that only through dialogue and communication can a permanent peace be found. There are reasons to be positive. Events in the past few days have been both significant and promising. Just last week, eight Turkish soldiers who had been captured by Kurdish rebels were released and the EU has demonstrated that it is prepared to engage on the issue. On 23 October, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) and I met members of the Kurdish community from my constituency and Ms Rahman, the Kurdistan regional government's high representative to the UK, who reiterated its commitment fully to engage in dialogue with Turkey. That is in Turkey's interest, too. I look forward to the day when Turkey becomes a full and active EU member, but with that right comes responsibility. Turkey can represent a proper bridge to the middle east, but that must never be at the expense of minority rights within Turkey. The EU's norms and values are expressed not by the prevailing religion but by our attitudes of tolerance and respect for those of different faiths and cultures. Turkey's drive towards modernisation and Europeanisation holds the key to that. Turkey's Prime Minister has said that the solution to ““the Kurdish problem”” lies in"““greater democracy, greater rights, greater social and economic development - in short Turkey's Europeanisation.””" I entirely agree. Turkey must engage with its own Kurdish population, and be prepared to work with the Kurdistan regional government in what is, after all, their mutual interest. Kurdistan is a model for how Iraq should be: relative peace and stability leading to investment and reform. It is vital to the west, to Turkey and to all neighbours in the region that Kurdistan continues to flourish. We should be doing all we can to help that to happen. I have spoken of the growing trade union movement in Iraq. When some of my colleagues visited Kurdistan last year, they held a five-hour discussion with union leaders from around Iraq where the message was simple: ““Help us to stand on our own two feet and contribute to social justice.”” Trade unions can help contribute to social justice, as has been demonstrated over the years in this country. Just the other day I had the privilege of meeting the visiting Kurdistan region youth and sports Minister, who told me that Iraqi Kurds are fanatical about football and that the Arbil team from Kurdistan was the Iraqi team in the Asian cup. I was very pleased that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport was able to join us and to promise to help to promote greater sporting links between the UK and Kurdistan.