1 Introduction
Our inquiry
1. The UK's relationship with the six states
that border the Gulf[1]
stretches back over two centuries of alliances in the fields of
defence, trade, and regional security. The Government has announced
that it is strongly committed to strengthening the UK's bilateral
relations with all its partners in the Gulf, and to expanding
cooperation "across the board, in culture, education, defence
and security, trade and investment, and foreign policy".[2]
The Foreign Secretary has declared improving UK relations with
the Gulf to be a personal goal,[3]
and the Government included ambitions to upgrade UK-Gulf relations
in its 2011-15 Business Plan. In 2010, the Government therefore
launched its 'Gulf Initiative', a cross-departmental effort to
improve its relations with the Gulf States (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,
Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)).
2. We considered this a significant foreign policy
initiative in a region of vital importance to the UK. Although
the FCO has emphasised that the Gulf Initiative aims to improve
the UK's relations with all Gulf States, we chose to focus our
inquiry on two in particular, which was in line with previous
FAC bilateral inquiries into important partners, such as Brazil
and Turkey. First, we chose to look at the UK's relations with
Saudi Arabia, as the largest and most influential Gulf state,
as well as one with which the UK shares some priorities in terms
of defence and security, counter-terrorism, and trade. Second,
we chose to examine the UK's relationship with Saudi Arabia's
island neighbour Bahrain, which is connected to the Saudi mainland
by a causeway. The UK-Bahrain relationship is one of the UK's
oldest and closest bilateral relationships in the Gulf. Bahrain
has experienced significant turbulence and challenge since the
events of 2011, so we wanted to examine how this might have affected
the UK-Bahrain relationship, as well as how the UK has supported
Bahrain during this difficult period.
3. The Foreign Affairs Committee last considered
the UK's relationship with a Gulf State in 2006, when our predecessor
committee focused on the UK's relationship with Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates as part of its overarching inquiry into
Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism.
4. The Committee invited written submissions
on the UK's relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, in the broader
context of the UK and the Gulf States, with a particular focus
on the following points:
- the UK's foreign policy priorities
in its relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and how effectively
the Government balances the UK's interests in defence, commerce,
energy security, counter-terrorism, and human rights;
- the extent to which the FCO's Gulf Initiative
has met its objective of improving relations with the Gulf States
more generally and establishing the UK as a "key strategic
partner" in the region as a whole;
- Saudi Arabia and Bahrain as foreign policy partners
for the UK, particularly with regard to Iran and Syria and as
members of international and regional organisations;
- the implications of the Arab Spring for UK foreign
policy in its relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain;
- how the UK can encourage democratic and liberalising
reforms in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, including its power to effect
improvements;
- the long-term trends and scenarios in the region
for which the FCO should prepare, and the extent to which it is
doing so;
- the extent to which the FCO has the resources,
personnel and capacities required for effective policy in the
region.
5. We received a total of 71 written submissions
from individuals, former diplomats, non-governmental organisations,
academics, writers, and the Government. Some of these submissions
contained allegations against individuals and organisations as
well as personal information, such as individuals' medical conditions
and details of alleged maltreatment and torture. We needed to
consider carefully the consequences of publishing such information,
and we are grateful to those who exercised patience while we did
so. We have now published 57 submissions as evidence: in some
cases authors agreed to remove personal information; in others,
the original submission has been redacted on agreement with the
author in order to protect individuals' safety and privacy. Those
that were not published included duplicates, submissions that
were later withdrawn, submissions that had already been published
elsewhere and submissions which were not fully relevant to the
inquiry but which we nonetheless treated as background papers.
6. We took oral evidence on six occasions, between
January 2013 and July 2013. Witnesses included academics, researchers,
former diplomats, business representatives, human rights and reform
experts and Government Ministers and officials from the Ministry
of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. A full list
of witnesses can be found on page 112 of this report. In March
2013, we visited Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Manama in Bahrain.
We provide a list of our meetings during these visits as Annex
A. We also held a number of private informal meetings in London
relevant to our inquiry; a full list of these meetings can be
found at Annex B. We would like to thank all those who provided
written and oral evidence, spoke to us in connection with our
inquiry or otherwise assisted us, and especially the UK's Ambassadors
to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and their teams for facilitating our
visits. We also record our thanks to Sir William Patey, former
British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (2007-2010) for his service
as Special Adviser to the Committee for this inquiry.[4]
1 Iran refers to the region as the Persian Gulf, while
some Gulf States refer to it as the Arabian Gulf. The FCO calls
it the Gulf, as will this report. Back
2
'The UK and the Gulf States', FCO website (archive), accessed
August 2012. fco.gov.uk/en/global-issues Back
3
Ibid. Back
4
Sir William was appointed on 4 December 2012. He declared the
following interests: Adviser to Control Risks, Non Executive Director
HSBC Bank Middle East, and Chairman Swindon Town FC. On 8 January
2013 he made a further declaration of his membership of the Locarno
Group, an advisory body to the FCO. These declarations appear
in the formal minutes of Committee meetings, published at http://www.parliament.uk/documents/ commons-committees/foreign-affairs/MOPs12-13final.pdf.
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