ENGAGING REGIONAL STATES
181. The Iraq Study Group identified the need for
an international support structure (or "Support Group")
to stabilise Iraq and ease tensions in neighbouring capitals.
It argued that the Support Group should be comprised of "every
country" that has an interest in avoiding a "chaotic
Iraq". This would include Iran and Syria.[298]
Indeed, it recommended that these two countries should be engaged
"without preconditions."[299]
However, this recommendation was not picked up by President Bush
when he set out his new strategy in January. We asked the former
Foreign Secretary about engagement with Iran. She told us that
the Government,
continue[s] to maintain contacts with both Iran and
Syria and to recognise the potential they have to contribute to
the solution. Equally though we continue to recognise […]
that they have the capacity and continue in many ways to play
a very negative role.
With reference to the Bush Administration, she argued
that the phrase "without preconditions" was the key
issue. She pointed out that if Iran suspended nuclear enrichment,
the US would be willing to engage diplomatically with Tehran.[300]
182. In February, Simon McDonald told us that whilst
the Government's approach towards engaging with Iran had been
"somewhat different" from that of the US, the policy
of the Bush Administration was "evolving." He noted
that on the issue of Iraq, the US was "reconsidering"
the merits of dialogue with Iran.[301]
The extent of this was soon apparent. When Mr McDonald again appeared
in front of the Committee in March, he had recently returned from
the first Iraq 'neighbours' meeting. In his assessment,
The meeting was an achievement for Foreign Minister
Zebari, who has been trying to get Iraq's neighbours to come to
Baghdad to discuss the range of issues that Iraq has had with
them for some time. He finally succeeded […] and got not
only the neighbours but key international organisations to attend,
such as the Arab league, the UN, the Organisation of the Islamic
Conference and the P5 of the UN.
This sounds very much like the Support Group proposed
by the Iraq Study Group. Mr McDonald told us there was a "good
discussion", and that "all the neighbours" said
the "right things." He informed us of the establishment
of three working groups, looking at refugees, security and fuel
imports. He also reported on the evolving US approach:
At the end of the conference, the US ambassador,
who was leading the US delegations, said that he had had businesslike,
constructive and positive working relations with the Iranian and
Syrian delegates across the conference table. He did not actually
make direct contact with them, but the basis for that was laid.
They were working in the same room, and in the margins of the
margins there was more progress with the Syrians than with the
Iranians.[302]
Mr McDonald agreed that the US was now accepting
this particular recommendation of the Iraq Study Group without
saying so.[303]
183. Since this first meeting in March, diplomatic
engagement on the issue of Iraq has deepened. In May, Egypt hosted
a high level follow-up called the Iraq Neighbours Conference.
The list of attendees included the then Foreign Secretary, US
Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice, and the Iranian and Syrian
Foreign Ministers. The then Foreign Secretary took the opportunity
to have a meeting with the Iranian Foreign Minister, but Dr Rice
did not engage with him formally. She was reported to have made
more progress with Syria. The Conference also led to the establishment
of the "International Compact for Iraq", which focused,
among other issues, on debt relief, reconstruction and political
benchmarks.[304] Later
in May, the US Ambassador in Iraq, Ryan Crocker, held a four-hour
meeting with his Iranian counterpart, focusing primarily on security
concerns. Both sides viewed the discussions as "positive."
These were the first formal talks between Iran and the US since
1980.[305]
184. We conclude
that it is welcome that regional states and key international
players are now engaged in formal discussions on the situation
in Iraq. We note that it has long been the policy of the Government
to engage with Iran, and we are encouraged by signs that the US
Administration is now accepting the wisdom of this approach. We
recommend that, in its response to this Report, the Government
set out the key agreements of the International Compact for Iraq
and what progress has been made towards them.
IRAQI REFUGEES
185. One of the working groups emerging from the
Iraq neighbours meeting focuses on the issue of refugees. In November
2006, the then Secretary of State for International Development
noted there were 1.6 million internally displaced persons in Iraq,
with 424,000 leaving their homes in the aftermath of the Samarra
bombing.[306] In a
written answer in February 2007, he provided estimates by the
UN on the numbers of Iraqi refugees in neighbouring countries.
The total number of refugees was 1.8 million. This included 25,000
to 40,000 in Lebanon, 700,000 in Jordan, estimates of up to 1,000,000
in Syria, 100,000 in Egypt, 16,000 in Turkey and 54,000 in Iran.
The UN did not have figures for Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.[307]
In March, we asked Dr Howells for his assessment of the refugee
situation. He said it was "a disaster" and that there
was "no way around it" but to improve security in Iraq,
in particular in Baghdad.[308]
186. When the Committee travelled to Syria, we were
struck by the strain that a now estimated 1.3 million Iraqi refugees
were placing on the infrastructure in Damascus. Those of us who
visited Jordan heard of similar difficulties there. Dr Rosemary
Hollis told the Committee that the influx of Iraqi refugees had
changed "the identity" of Jordan itself. Referring to
its decision to shut the border to Iraqi refugees, she argued
that the country was "trying to retain control" of its
destiny.[309] Human
Rights Watch has argued that all of Iraq's neighbours are now
seeking to keep out refugees. Saudi Arabia, for instance, is developing
a US$7 billion high-tech barrier on its border with Iraq.[310]
187. In June, the Government set out how much money
it had provided in recent years to the International Committee
of the Red Cross, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR), and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM)
specifically on the issue of refugees and displaced people.
