Miliband says UK must not retreat into shell

LONDON: Britain must remain a major player in international affairs despite likely political and budgetary constraints in coming years, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Monday.

“We mustn’t be a country that turns our back on the world,” Miliband told a public inquiry into the Iraq War, saying that would be the wrong response to divisions over the US-led invasion of 2003.

Miliband, who took over as foreign secretary in 2007, said pressing ahead with the invasion of Iraq despite divisions among major powers had not harmed the work of the UN in New York.

He said the authority of the UN would have been “severely dented” if nothing had been done to disarm former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. reuters

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