Visits by UK Members of Parliament to Middle East

This file concerns the visits of British MPs to the Middle East. It contains itineraries, arrangements, briefs, correspondence and memoranda relating to:

• A tour by MPs on the Energy Committee to Kuwait, Damascus and Baghdad between 2 and 11 of January 1976, as guests of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), including reference to: internal and external politics in Kuwait; the Arab-Israeli conflict; bilateral relations between the UK and Kuwait; the Kuwaiti Government’s decision to take over the remaining forty percent equity of the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC); Iraq’s economic development; and the nationalisation of the remaining foreign shares in the Basra Petroleum Company Limited
• A tour by members of the Energy Sub-Committee of the Parliamentary Committee on Science and Technology’s to Abu Dhabi and Kuwait between 13 and 30 October 1975, including reference to their discussions on nuclear energy, and preparations for the Committees’ visits to Cable and Wireless Limited Branches overseas

This file also contains correspondence relating to:

• The Association for the Promotion and Protection of Foreign and Private Investment’s (APPI) decision to contact some of the richer developing countries to see whether they would be interested in developing common interests with countries represented in the Association
• A suggestion by Reginald Maudling MP that Margaret Thatcher MP give the Christian Herter Lecture in the US in the autumn