By Farishta Saeed
Manama, Oct. 30 (BNA): British Joint Forces Command Commander General Sir Richard Barrons KCB, CBE, ADG GEN said Bahrain and UK shared a good relationship for almost 200 years.

In a statement to the Bahrain News Agency (BNA) on the sidelines of the 11th Regional Security Summit –Manama Dialogue, organised by the. International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), he said that “Bahrain is an important country to us. We have been friends and partners for a very long time.
“I will be talking in one of the sessions on how countries like the UK can help the GCC countries, as they face a more difficult time,” he said.

“A number of topics will be highlighted in the coming two days but I think the main topics which are on top of people’s minds are’GCC confronting a range of issues in Yemen’ and ‘stability in GCC and how we should get together and help to deal with it in a better way’. Now we need to do something different,” he added.

“I have two objectives to achieve during this event. One of them is to meet as many people as I can because relationship matters so I am looking for my military colleagues mainly. In addition to that, I am looking forward to supporting our British Foreign Secretary during his visit here,” he also said.

“The second objective is to understand the problem that the region is facing better so when I go back to UK I can say ‘well the situation is like this, this is how can we be helpful and that brilliant idea wasn’t a brilliant idea and here is a new idea,” he noted.
Commander General Barrons said he was pleased to be in Bahrain.

“This is my first participation in Manama Dialogue, it is a pleasure being here and I am happy with the organisation of this essential event,” he said.

W H Q

BNA 1845 GMT 2015/10/30