THIS is our war, here in East Lancashire. On Friday at 5.30pm, two young men come to see me at a constituency surgery.

They were both Iraqi Kurds, but from Mosul in Saddam-controlled Iraq, not the safe area to the north under the Kurdish Autonomous Zone.

One of the two was an asylum seeker, wanting to know from me how long he would have to wait for a decision on his case. The other was not an asylum seeker.

His case had already been accepted. He had been given "exceptional leave to remain". He was a skilled tradesman, unlike his friend; he spoke very good English.

I asked him about the military action. He said that he was fed up that people who protested against the war claimed to do so in the name of the Iraqi people.

He said: "Some Iraqis of course support Saddam, but most do not. No Kurds do. We are Iraqis too, but Saddam has tried to exterminate the whole of my people.

"That's why when I saw a march against the war come down the street, I stopped them. Told them to listen to the Iraqis now in Blackburn -- some of those that had fled their homelands because of Saddam's terror."

This man made another point too. There is a theological divide in the Muslim world between "Sunni" and "Shia" Muslims, not dissimilar to the divide in the Christian world between Catholics and Protestants.

Saddam is a Sunni; many of his opponents in the south of Iraq -- and Iran -- are Shia. But, said this man, most of the Kurdish Iraqis were Sunni, just like the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Blackburn.

I used this encounter on Saturday, when I was doing an open air meeting in town.

Asylum seekers have been one source of an increase in some racial tension in East Lancashire but there is still an issue for some people about the "newer" Blackburnians whose families came from India and Pakistan, so here's a tale as to how appearances can be deceptive.

An elderly Asian gentleman came to see me. He was aged 82. A widower, he wanted my help in getting entry clearance for his second wife, from Pakistan.

I said I would do what I could. He spoke little English so I asked him how long he'd been here. "Since 1963", he said.

"I came when the Blackburn mill-owners were advertising in Pakistan for mill-hands because they couldn't get enough labour in town. I worked the whole time until I retired."

And had he any other connection with the UK, I asked out of interest? "Oh yes -- in Germany. In the war I fought in the British Army against the Nazis".

As I took further details from the man I mused that we probably owed him more than he did us.

Yesterday, I flew to Belfast to join the Prime Minister, President Bush and Colin Powell for talks at Hillsborough. Top of the agenda was the future of Iraq once Saddam Hussein has gone.

Our over-riding objective is that the Iraqi people themselves should, as soon as is possible be able to determine their own future after more than two decades of dictatorship and repression.

We were also due to discuss the need to bring peace elsewhere in the Middle East. Palestinians and Israelis have suffered for too long, and a lasting settlement on the basis of a viable Palestinian state and security for Israel is essential. The Prime Minister will also be discussing US help on implementing the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.