Regional Security is UK Security, says UK Foreign Secretary

Manama, Oct.31 (BNA): Britain is still committed to the security of its traditional partners in the Gulf, said UK State Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Philip Hammond. "I said last year during Manama Dialogue that 'your security is our security'. That was true then and it's true now'," said Hammond who was delivering a speech during the second day of Manama Dialogue 2015 organised by The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "At the heart of the relationship we have with our key allies in the region is a joint commitment to defence and counter-terrorism. A commitment that is keeping Britain safer and keeping the Gulf safer. "Over the next few months we will publish our "Gulf Strategy" setting out our vision for Britain's relations with its Gulf partners over the next 20 years or so - including how we will operationalise our commitment to a more sustained military presence in the region on land at sea and in the air," he added. "As a former Defence Secretary it will come as no surprise to you that I am looking forward to the time - early in the next decade - when our two new aircraft carriers currently under construction will be sharing in the task of keeping the waters of the Gulf safe, with their compliment of F35 stealth fighters." Hammond said that the challenge of extremism was not new. "We have confronted extremist ideologies in the past most notably, fascism and communism in the 20th century and we have overcome them. "But the threat we face today is of a different nature. Because the ideology that underpins the extremism we face is not an invented like communism or fascism, but it is rooted in a corrupt interpretation of one of the world's great religions," he added. "Because of that it has a deeper roots and wider reach and it is harnessing the power of internet to spread its message across the world in a way that has not been available to any previous extremist movement." Hammond said countering Islamist extremism was perhaps the great challenge of our time and it is a challenge which every country must face. "It is here in this region that Islamist extremism has had the greatest impact with many millions of people forced to flee their homes and in many cases their countries by Daesh seizure of territory in Iraq and Syria and hundreds more are killed and injured in indiscriminate attacks around the region", he said. "Daesh extreme doctrine is subversive as well as barbaric. It pursues its objectives through a reign of terror and violence, murderous towards anyone Muslim or non-Muslim who does not subscribe to its perverted world view. Its fundamental tenets beside violence and intimidation are discrimination, subjugation and sectarianism and it seeks to undermine and destroy the nation states that are the very building blocks of our international system with its so-called caliphate." Daesh and the extremist Islamist ideology it espouses, represents a fundamental threat to all of our security, said Hammond. "So we must adopt a common response to this common threat if, together, we are to confront them and defeat them," he added. "Indeed we have done so in responding to the military challenge of Daesh. I know from my visits in the region earlier this week and over the recent months, that few countries are more heavily invested in the fight again Daesh – and few are facing more starkly the consequences of their rise – than the nations of this region. "I pay tribute to your efforts and offer condolence for your sacrifice. Together, as an international coalition, we can be confident that we are degrading Daesh, and we will, in time defeat it."