Manama: The UK is looking into establishing a more permanent facility in the Gulf region, Secretary of State for Defence Philip Hammond has reportedly said.
“As we draw down from the combat situation in Afghanistan, where we have for many years had an opportunity to provide training to our forces through the deployments they do to Afghanistan, we have to think through how we will train our forces in desert warfare, in hot-conditions’ combat in the future, and certainly one of the options is to establish a more permanent facility somewhere in the Gulf,” Hammond said in the Qatari capital Doha.
However, the minister, who was responding to a question about the UK’s future military expansion plans in the Middle East at a press briefing, denied claims that the UK had already decided on the Gulf country it might establish a permanent base in.
“It’s a possibility that we are looking at and we’re interested to discuss how to take that forward. We haven’t decided for sure to do this yet, but certainly it’s one of the options we are looking at,” the Qatari daily Gulf Times reported on Thursday.
Hammond added that the interest of the Western military in the region was to ensure peace and stability.
“The West is crucially dependent on a stable energy market above all else. Our economic recovery is fragile. Anything that calls for a spike in the oil price would derail it,” he said. “The mostly likely scenario to cause that up spike is a surge in tension in this region, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz.
“It is very much in our interest to have a stable situation in the Gulf. That is why Western countries are prepared to invest so much in this region and supporting the Gulf states to maintain that stability,” he said.
The British official added his country looked forward to an end to the political crisis within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that saw three member states — Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — pull out their ambassadors from Qatar last month.
“I don’t think it is for outsiders to get involved in these disagreements. These are disagreements between friends, between countries whose fundamental interests are aligned and who fundamentally face the same challenges. I’m sure that they will be resolved in a timely manner, so that good and growing co-operation in the GCC can be resumed,” he said.
