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Blair to confirm shift in Iran policy - reports

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Nov. 13, IRNA
UK Blair-Iran
Defence Secretary Des Browne Monday defended the British government's change in strategy to support the opening of talks with Iran and Syria as a way to break the impasse in Iraq and the wider middle east.

"We always said, you can't see Iraq in isolation," Browne said.

"We had to see Iraq in the context of regional circumstance," he said.

Speaking in an interview with BBC Radio Four's Today programme, he insisted that throughout the Iraq conflict, the British government's policy has been to "call on Iran and Syria to do more."

His comments came as Prime Minister Tony Blair was reported to be set to using his annual foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in London on Monday night to confirm support for dialogue with Tehran and Damascus to secure peace in the Middle East.

Blair will stress that achieving wider peace in the region will involve "making clear to Syria and Iran the basis on which they can help the peaceful development of the Middle East," according to PA News.

Defending the change in policy from previously trying to disregard Iran and Syria, Browne said that while the UK's strategy in Iraq has been always clearly identifiable, it has "been adaptable." "Our strategy has been adapting throughout the time because it covers both security and politics and because the political settlement indeed will be the enduring part of change in Iraq," he said.

The defence secretary insisted that throughout the Iraq conflict, the British government has being "calling on Iran and Syria to do more."

"We will continue to talk to all of Iraq's neighbours and make clear the importance of a solution in the regional context," he said.

The change in policy comes after Blair was first reported on Saturday to be preparing to urge the US to open talks with Iran and Syria as a way of the debacle in Iraq, when he gives evidence on Tuesday to the Iraq Review Group in Washington by video link.

Browne denied that the strategy reversal was connected with indications of a shift in US policy following mid-term election defeats that led to the sacking of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"Change has been under way for some time now and it distorts the reality to suggest that that change is predicated upon a change in American politics," he insisted.

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