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Last weekend, North Oxfordshire MP Tony Baldry led a delegation of three MPs to Iraq

18 May 2009

They had meetings with key Ministers, including a lengthy meeting with the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

"The security situation in Baghdad", said Tony Baldry, "is still not easy but Iraq is starting to return to normal and in due course will be a significant country in its own region and given its very substantial oil and gas reserves, potentially a wealthy country with considerable opportunities for UK business and exporters."

"We discussed in detail a number of projects including substantially increasing English language training in Iraq with the help of the British Council. Also how we can strengthen links between Iraq and UK universities."

"The Iraqi Government have made it clear that they want to fund some 10,000 Iraqi students to go overseas each year for higher education, and they anticipate a large number of these students coming to the UK."

"We also discussed how Iraq could pay to get its Iraqi qualified doctors a greater range of post graduate training in the UK. A scheme like this does already exist at the JR in Oxford, but it is at present funded by the UK Government as Iraq starts to become more self-sufficient there is no reason why the Iraqi Government should not fund the expansion of such types of training themselves."