DHAKA: The 2003 invasion of Iraq is not to blame for the violent insurgency now gripping the country, former UK prime minister Tony Blair has said.

Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr, he said there would still be a ‘major problem’ in the country even without the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Blair said the current crisis was a ‘regional’ issue that ‘affects us all’.

And he warned against believing that if we ‘wash our hands of it and walk away, then the problems will be solved’.

‘Even if you’d left Saddam in place in 2003, then when 2011 happened - and you had the Arab revolutions going through Tunisia and Libya and Yemen and Bahrain and Egypt and Syria - you would have still had a major problem in Iraq,’ Blair said.

‘Indeed, you can see what happens when you leave the dictator in place, as has happened with Assad now. The problems don’t go away.’

BDST: 1310 HRS, JUNE 15, 2014