Archbishop of Canterbury: Christians victims of UK and US foreign policy

By Tom Peterkin
17/04/2008

Christians in the Middle East are suffering because of British and American foreign policy, the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned.

Against a backdrop of rising Islam extremism, Dr Rowan Williams said Christian groups were increasingly seen as a "foreign and aggressive presence" as a result of Western policies.

Speaking before he addressed an audience in Westminster Cathedral on Thursday night, Dr Williams highlighted the plight of Christians who had been forced to flee the Holy Land.

The Archbishop said that Christians had traditionally played a leading role in social, cultural and intellectual change in the Middle East.

But, he said, those historic communities now risked becoming "museum pieces" in a "theme park" region as a result of persecution. This was partly because of an extremist form of Islam filling the void left after the peak of Arab nationalism, he claimed. the rest