The Middle East media focus may for the moment be on the peace talks between Israel and Palestine currently underway in Washington DC, but it appears other things are afoot, albeit relatively minor.

From a somewhat content-lite press release I learn that two British conservative MPs recently returned from a visit to Lebanon. At the invitation of the self-declaredly anti-extremist organisation IMAN Worldwide, Foreign Affairs Committee member Andrew Rosindell and Tory Arabist Daniel Kawczynski met with various Lebanese government ministers and other political figures, including Sheikh Mohammad Al Hajj Hassan, leader of the anti-Hezbollah Free Shiite Movement.

Quite what the British parliamentarians hoped to achieve during their trip to Lebanon is not clear from either the PR puff or the IMAN report of the meeting, but it is interesting to see western politicians engaging with Shiite Muslim colleagues who are not in the pay of Tehran.