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BRITAIN’S FOREIGN MINISTER Boris Johnson has accused Saudi Arabia and Iran of “puppeteering” and engaging in “proxy wars” in the Middle East, a video shows.
In the clip, Johnson tells a conference in Rome last week it was a “tragedy” that politicians in the region were “twisting and abusing religion” to advance their political objectives.
Such public criticism of British ally Saudi Arabia was seen by some commentators as a diplomatic blunder by Johnson, who has been in the job less than six months.
His comments, filmed and posted on the Guardian’s website, came as British prime minister Theresa May returned from a summit in Bahrain where she pledged to strengthen ties with Gulf states including Saudi Arabia.
“There are politicians who are twisting and abusing religion and different strains of the same religion in order to further their own political objectives,” Johnson told the Med 2 conference.
That’s one of the biggest political problems in the whole region. And the tragedy for me – and that’s why you have these proxy wars being fought the whole time in that area – is that there’s not strong enough leadership in the countries themselves.
Johnson said there were “not enough big characters” willing to “reach out beyond their Sunni or Shia” group, adding:
That’s why you’ve got the Saudis, Iran, everybody, moving in and puppeteering and playing proxy wars.
Allies
Britain’s foreign ministry stressed that Johnson had voiced support for Saudi Arabia on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.
“As the Foreign Secretary made very clear on Sunday, we are allies with Saudi Arabia and support them in their efforts to secure their borders and protect their people,” a spokesman said.
Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong and misinterpreting the facts.
Addressing a summit of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Bahrain on Wednesday, May reaffirmed British support for traditional allies in the region and said Britain would help “push back against Iran’s aggressive regional actions.”
In a joint statement, GCC states and Britain agreed to a “strategic partnership” and said they “oppose and will work together to counter Iran’s destabilising activities”.
WOW, all the pro-Chinese t-ro-lls already on here……..
I just read an utterly insane comment that HK protestors should be thankful they’re not facing the NYPD?!!
Just how blind to China’s, literal, decades long abuses of human rights do they think we are?
@Tricia G: the 50 cent army is always around for these articles to spout their muck.
It’s both Full Moon
@Seriousnojoke: You mean all those people being kettled in Causeway bay by Police right now?
@Seriousnojoke: You think people in HK should consider themselves lucky because they are not dealing with NYPD. I disagree, Hong Kongers are lucky because the CCP have been kind not send them to concentration camps like the have for the Uyghurs in mainland China.
@Seriousnojoke: Pro-PRC troll.
@Seriousnojoke: LMFAO
@Seriousnojoke: You are a CCP pansy. The police harrassed a senior citizen for carry a yellow balloon ffs and charge groups of people who gather to cross the street at crossings, then arrest minors for baseless charges. Reading an Apple daily publication gains you the attention of police, like the guy alone in the MTR surround by 12 or more police while he read the paper.
@Seriousnojoke: propaganda troll for the CCP.
@Little Pudding: “the CCP have been kind not send them to concentration camps like the have for the Uyghurs”
Give them time!
Move to Taiwan and report from there instead. That will really pi*s off the CCP.
25 years ago, I was worried about China for all of us…. kept saying that in several debates… here we are….
Apple Daily, full lies, bias views or opinions, we call it as poison Apple, just like Fox News, other media debunks their lies and nobody’s cares.
In hk, the journalist was cheap, just pay €25 that is all. The most time they have tons of “journalists” standing between police and riots, literally standing between them. The police couldn’t do their job, just like mosquitos, so annoying. One of the photo i’ve see is one police hold smoke grenade gun standing at the corner and aim, that is all on hk media, but the full photo is about 50 journalists around him and taking photo of him, who cares about that?
Denzel Washington said if you read the newspaper, if you don’t read it, you’re misinformed, What is the long-term effect of too much information? One of the effects is the need to be first, not even to be true anymore.”
So what a responsibility you all have; to tell the truth, not to just be first, but to tell the truth.
“We live in a society now where it’s just first. Who cares? Get it out there. We don’t care who it hurts, we don’t care who we destroy, we don’t care if it’s true. Just say it, sell it.”
Harrow
I had a comment deleted because I was critical of journalists and their of of the tv licence scam
have your say