LONDON, Nov 15: British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has blamed his nation’s own imperial past for the chronic troubles of the Middle East, in an interview published in the New Statesman magazine on Friday.

Straw also acknowledged “some quite serious mistakes” in the Sub-continent at the time of partition as well as Britain’s “less than glorious role” in Afghanistan.

“A lot of the problems we are having to deal with now, I have to deal with now, are a consequence of our colonial past,” said Straw, a key player in securing a tough new UN disarmament resolution against Saddam Hussein.

“The odd lines for Iraq’s borders were drawn by Brits,” he said.

“The Balfour declaration and the contradictory assurances which were being given to Palestinians in private at the same time as they were being given to the Israelis — again, an interesting history for us, but not an honourable one,” he added.

Britain invaded Iraq during World War I, when it was part of the German-allied Ottoman Empire, then administered it under a League of Nations mandate until 1932.

The Balfour declaration of 1917, named for then foreign secretary Arthur Balfour, was interpreted by Zionists as a green light to establish Israel in what was then British-controlled Palestine.—AFP