Middle East peace crucial to Iraq

Source: CCTV.com | 11-15-2006 13:53

British Prime Minister Tony Blair says peace in the Middle East is crucial to the future of Iraq. He made the comments on Tuesday, during a videoconference with a US bipartisan panel on Iraq strategy. Blair also made similar comments in a foreign policy speech on Monday. He said that a strategy for the whole of the Middle East is needed to combat terrorism and extremism in Iraq that comes from outside its borders.

Tony Blair said, “A major part of the answer to Iraq lies not in Iraq itself but outside it, in the whole of the region where the same forces are at work, where the roots of this global terrorism are to be found, where the extremism flourishes with a propaganda that may be, indeed is, totally false but is nonetheless attractive to much of the Arab street.”