(IRNA) - Britain's two main opposition parties have backed Prime Minister Tony Blair's offer of a "new partnership" with Iran and Syria to help the US and UK out of the quagmire they have created in the Middle East by invading Iraq.
The Liberal Domocrats, which always opposed the war against Iraq, said that "a new approach with phased withdrawal at its centre is essential."
"It is abundantly clear, as Liberal Democrats have long argued, that Iran and Syria must be involved in the interests of regional stability," its party leader Sir Menzies Campbell said.
In his annual foreign policy speech to the Lord Mayor's Banquet in London on Monday night, Blair confirmed that he was offering a "new partnership" with Iran and Syria to help salvage the situation in Iraq but put the onus on both countries to meet old conditions, reports Trend.
Campbell suggested that there was "every indication that the Prime Minister will finally accept that the coalition strategy in Iraq has failed."
But he insisted that there was a need for "a British strategy based on British priorities, not one that is dependent on the outcome of an American inquiry," headed by former US Secretary of State James Baker.
The main opposition Conservatives, which supported the Iraq war, was more cautious about inviting Iran and Syria to help resolve the debacle in Iraq, saying that talks should be "on the right terms." "It would be a mistake, I think, to imagine that in the next few weeks these countries are going to turn around and say: 'Oh yes, we will help you out in Iraq'," shadow foreign secretary William Hague warned.
Hague also told the BBC that he would like to see other things happen to bring internal security to Iraq, including building a coalition of countries like Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia working together.
On Monday, the Foreign Policy Centre in London, which has links with Britain's ruling Labour Party criticized Hague for being "naive" if he was proposing talks with only so-called 'moderate' Arab states in the region.
"It is this blinkered Middle East policy that has resulted in the current malaise in the region," said Alex Bingham, who is an Iran analyst at the centre.