SCOTLAND would never have been involved in the Iraq war if it had been an independent country, according to First Minister Alex Salmond.

He said yesterday that while his government would be willing to share military facilities with “friendly neighbours”, it would have its own foreign policy and “there’s no way on Earth that Scotland would ever have participated as an independent country in the illegal war in Iraq”.

Speaking on the BBC Politics Show, Mr Salmond said: “That stresses why you’ve got to have the ability and determination in order to chart your own way in the world so that you don’t get entangled into illegal and disastrous international conflicts.”

Challenged on whether social security, defence and foreign policy would be pooled or shared with the Westminster Government, Mr Salmond said: “Many, many countries in the world share military facilities with friendly neighbours and there’s absolutely no reason why Scotland wouldn’t be prepared to do that.”

The First Minister also maintained there would be no early independence referendum and would not be railroaded into having one by Westminster. He said: “During the campaign I explained why our objective was to have the referendum in the second half of this five-year parliamentary term and our immediate priority was to put economic muscle into the Scotland Bill… because our emphasis is on getting the economic teeth to aid jobs and recovery in Scotland. This was spelt out during the campaign, people voted for us on that basis and therefore I will keep my word and trust and covenant with the Scottish people.”

On the possibility of the Scotland Bill being changed to include a referendum on independence, he said Prime Minister David Cameron “probably realises Scots would not take kindly to a Westminster parliament with no mandate to do such a thing, trying to pre-empt or usurp our democratic right to have a referendum when the people elected to have that referendum [will] choose”.

Stirling Labour MP Anne McGuire claimed Mr Salmond’s statements on defence and foreign policy exposed “the intellectual incoherence in the SNP’s case for independence” because they were “inextricably intertwined”. She said: “Scotland’s strong role within the UK means that we are intimately linked to the top class of international relations. Our seat at Nato, our leadership in the European Union, our veto at the UN Security Council, our role in the G20 -- all these would be lost under the narrow nationalism of the SNP.”