Iran

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, I very much agree with what has already been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, and I congratulate her on calling this timely debate. I also strongly support what was said by my noble friend Lord Lamont, who was absolutely right in suggesting that it is perfectly possible to now open negotiations with Iran on a serious basis. I add only one thing to what he said about that, which is that Iran has already suggested that it could move away from the 20% refinement figure across the front, where it started moving in that direction, and back to the 5% which is compatible with civilian uses of nuclear power. That should be carefully tested, investigated and discussed so that we can find out how much credence there is in what has already been said.

The only other point that I will make is that it is difficult to look at a country like Iran and not recognise that it has profound reasons to be frightened of being attacked. We tend to forget in this country that the Iran-Iraq war brought, as my noble friend said, 500,000 casualties. That is a rather modest figure; my understanding is that it was probably more like 800,000, of which the larger proportion was Iranian casualties. Why? Because only Iraq used chemical weapons; Iran never resorted to them. Iraq used both sarin and mustard gas, which are long-standing and extremely agonising forms of chemical weaponry. It can fairly be said that there is not a single country in the world, not even Syria, which has suffered as much from the use of chemical weapons as Iran. Despite that, Iran has never attempted to build up chemical weapons. Compared to the huge reserves of 10,000 tonnes that we know Syria has, the core of the matter is that Iran has never moved in that direction. It has repeatedly said that it regards chemical weapons as totally unacceptable.

On a more general note, I understand that up until now, the United Nations has not sent an invitation to Iran to take part in the Geneva II negotiations which are likely to happen later this year or, at the very latest, early next spring. I find that puzzling given that Iran is the second-greatest regional power in the whole area, and also given that it is seen as an ally by Syria. Assad has not said himself that he will go to any Geneva II negotiations, but there is surely reason to believe that if his closest ally, Iran, is there, he is much more likely to go than if it is not there. Perhaps my noble friend Lady Warsi will tell us something about the prospects for Geneva II including Iran as one of the countries sitting round the table. It is vital because, like it or not, Iran is seen by the whole of the Shia group of Muslims throughout the world as being the lead country. Therefore, its non-presence would almost certainly undermine the value of those negotiations.

I will say two other things before turning to one or two practical ideas that could be used to create a much closer and mutually constructive relationship with Iran. I fully share what has already been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, and the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, on the subject of issues that can be taken up and used in this respect. The first thing I will say is that there is a colossal misunderstanding about Iran in the West. I will take just one example, as a woman Member of the House of Lords. It is widely believed in large parts of the United States that Iran is rather like Saudi Arabia: that women walk around fully veiled, are not allowed to drive cars, have no education and are deeply and profoundly suppressed. Not so. Some 55% of undergraduates in Iran at the present time are women, and there are large numbers of women at the very top of both the legal and medical professions.

I completely share what was said by both previous speakers about human rights. We absolutely need to insist that Iran lives up to the highest standards of human rights and that it releases more—indeed, ultimately all—its prisoners who have not been tried. It is vital that we better understand that this great civilisation is not the same as some of the excesses that one sees in other countries. Incidentally, the widely held belief that Iran is Arab is also completely misleading. The fact that it is multifaceted in religious terms is an important point to make. There are still active members of the Zoroastrian community in Iran, which is an ancient civilisation.

Practically, what can we do? I suggest that there are three areas where we could create much better relations with Iran without damaging in any way the serious considerations that have to be brought to bear on such things as nuclear weapons and so forth. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, mentioned the possibility of much closer relations with universities. My noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury recently went to the University of Isfahan, which is a very famous and ancient university, and also to the University of Tehran. In both cases he was told very strongly that they would welcome a much closer relationship with a matching United Kingdom university. They did not specify which ones, but they made it clear that they would be wide open to such proposals.

There is another serious issue which involves the universities. That is, as some noble Lords in the Room already know, that there is a very serious incidence of drug-related tuberculosis in Zahedan, in the south-eastern part of Iran. I will spell it for Hansard. I am not sure I have pronounced it right. The important point is that drug-related TB is not a respecter of borders. It crosses them very happily. We know from our own experience of drug-related tuberculosis among some migrants to Britain how crucial it is to try to deal with this at the source. Iran comes second only to India in the incidence of drug-related TB. We have in Britain university departments that are highly instructed about and knowledgeable about drug-related TB. This is, again, an obvious win-win example of what can be done.

Secondly—and I now look firmly at the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, who will be surprised that I address him—I strongly believe that a group of religious leaders from Britain would be very welcome in Iran and would do a great deal to bridge the gap between us and this strange country, which is rather like the Holy Roman Empire, in that it is at once both a religious and a political entity. I have always been puzzled why the great advantage that the Church of England has in this respect, as a state-based religion, could not be used to create much closer relations with Iran.

My final point is very important. We have in this Room—I invited him as a guest—Professor Lightfoot, who is the leader of the co-ordinating organisation of international research into disease surveillance. He has set up, all over the world, networks of people looking at surveillance of a disease and how it moves across the world. He has just been approached by Iran, Armenia, Georgia, and other countries with a view to setting up a regional network. I can think of nothing better—less objectionable, politically speaking—than to set up such a—

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I must ask my noble friend to conclude.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I will be finished in a moment. There could be nothing better than to set up an international network of this kind and to support Iran’s being part of it. I commend the idea to the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Warsi]

I take the point made by my noble friend. So far as the UK is concerned, we have tried to issue export licenses for these products as a priority, but I understand the challenges that are presented by the banking sanctions. I shall certainly take back the comments that have been made in the debate today, including those referring to CORDS, the organisation that is in attendance here. It is the ambition of the UK Government to resolve the impasse in the nuclear issue peacefully. We therefore hope that President Rouhani’s Government will engage constructively and reach a negotiated settlement with the international community.

I can assure noble Lords, and specifically in response to the comments made by my noble friend Lord Lamont, that we have been open with Iran. We have said clearly that reaching a comprehensive agreement on the nuclear issue would mean the normalisation of political and economic relations with the international community and the end of all nuclear sanctions. Iran’s nuclear programme would be treated in the same manner as that of any other non-nuclear weapon state party to the non-proliferation treaty. A solution to the nuclear problem would mean that normal commercial ties with Iran could resume. It is therefore in all our interests for this matter to be resolved and for us to proceed to the next stage. The E3+3 accepts and respects Iran’s right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. But this remains impossible if Iran continues to expand its nuclear programme in violation of UN Security Council resolutions and multiple resolutions of the IAEA Board of Governors.

Iran’s recent activities go far beyond what is required for a civil nuclear programme. Iran needs to take concrete steps to address international concerns and comply with international resolutions. We therefore welcome the more positive approach taken by the Iranian Government in nuclear talks between Iran and the E3+3 in Geneva last week. Foreign Minister Zarif presented a basis for negotiations and for the first time diplomats have begun more substantive discussions with Iran on issues of concern. We hope that negotiations will lead soon to some tangible results. There is a great deal of hard work ahead and further talks will take place on 7 and 8 November in Geneva. It is important that we maintain the positive momentum of the negotiations while at all times keeping a clear focus on Iran’s continuing efforts to develop its nuclear programme.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and other noble Lords raised the issue of educational ties. We deeply regret that one implication of the lack of progress on the nuclear issue and a consequence of the closure of our embassy in Tehran has been to make it harder for Iranians to apply for visas to travel here as students, and for other visas. While there has been a noticeable drop in the number of students applying for visas, the UK remains committed to fostering educational links and has issued nearly 1,500 student visas via our diplomatic missions in Istanbul and Abu Dhabi. We also continue to run the Chevening Scholarships programme for Iranian students. This scheme is part-funded by the Foreign Office and will enable six outstanding scholars from Iran to study a one-year postgraduate course at a university in the UK.

The British Council suspended operations in Iran in 2009 but, noting President Rouhani’s positive comments regarding engagement with the international community, is now looking again at strengthening cultural and educational links between the UK and Iran. In the mean time, the British Council has supported English language teacher training through the development of digital resources and face-to-face training events outside Iran.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister and thank her for giving way. Just before we move away from the visa issue, will she consider looking at visas specifically for scientific and medical purposes? I mentioned drug-resistant TB. There is a great deal of expertise in this country and in Iran. That is the kind of area where perhaps a more generous approach can be made.

[Baroness Warsi]

I will certainly look at that specific issue, and will continue to press for the overall normalisation of relations, which will impact positively on all visa applications.

In May this year, the British Council also hosted a meeting across the Persian Gulf in Dubai, which brought together senior non-governmental stakeholders from the Iranian education sector to discuss language and education in Iran. Such dialogues are continuing; for instance, with a round-table discussion next month, which will explore the role of cultural relations in developing UK-Iran engagement.

The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, and my noble friend Lord Lamont spoke about banking restrictions. It is regrettable that a number of banks have taken the position that they have. It is not the intention of sanctions for that to have happened. The impact of sanctions on student bank accounts has been as a result of some banks imposing their own restrictions in addition to the sanctions. The FCO has held some initial discussions with the Treasury on how to resolve this issue, and these discussions are currently ongoing.

As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has said, progress in our bilateral relationship with Iran must be on a step-by-step and reciprocal basis. We are open to more direct contact and further improvements in our relationship. It is with this in mind that we are appointing the chargés d’affaires, who will be tasked with rebuilding our relations and dialogue on many issues.

My noble friend Lady Williams is right: one issue where Iran can, and must, play a constructive role is Syria. The new Iranian Government have said that they want to see a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict. No decision has been made on Iran’s participation in Geneva II. We call on President Rouhani’s Government to match their words with actions and publicly endorse the G8-backed Geneva communiqué, which calls for a negotiation between the Assad regime and the Opposition on a new transitional authority for Syria. Iran has so far failed to endorse that communiqué. Iran’s actions must not prolong the conflict and must not contravene UN Security Council Resolution 1747. However, by supporting the Syrian regime with weapons and financial assistance, unfortunately Iran’s actions continue to do that at this stage.

Finally, as this Committee is well aware, the human rights situation in Iran continues to be a matter of serious concern. We regularly receive reports of serious violations by the Iranian regime against its own citizens and have condemned these. While I accept the comments of my noble friend Lady Williams, Iran does differ in many positive ways on the issue of human rights, women’s rights in particular, but there are still challenges. Women continue to suffer discrimination under Iranian law with a draft Islamic penal code continuing to legitimise disparity between the sexes. We saw a further erosion of women’s rights in Iran in August 2012—

Syria: Humanitarian Assistance

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord makes an incredibly important point. For that reason, not only have we given ourselves but we have encouraged other countries to give and to pledge, and then to make good their pledges. That is why during the G20 at St Petersburg, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister started this campaign. It was led across the world by our embassies. At the UN General Assembly in New York, a further US$1 billion was pledged. However, the appeal is still short. It is an ever increasing appeal because the situation continues to get worse. I assure noble Lords that we are doing our fair share in giving and that we are punching above our weight in asking others to give.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I may say how grateful many of us are to the generosity of the Government and their far-sightedness on the Syrian issue. I have a much more immediate question. As the discussion and the investigation of chemical weapons continues in Syria, the inspectors are moving into more and more dangerous territory, which is controlled by the opposition in its many forms. Will the Minister tell us whether there is any discussion between Her Majesty’s Government and this country’s allies about ways to provide protection, which means essentially using highly experienced military people, for the inspectors as they proceed with their work? We cannot ask them to lay down their lives because of what we are asking them to do.

[Baroness Warsi]

The inspectors are working in incredibly dangerous circumstances. My noble friend raises an important point. The United Nations Security Council resolution has required Syria to co-operate. Of course, there are situations where opposition forces hold that territory and, therefore, inspectors potentially could be working in areas which are not controlled by the regime. This is a long process which will take possibly until the middle of next year to complete. It has started and we will keep it under review. The fact that all parties to the negotiations are saying that they will co-operate with this sets a good first standard.

European Court of Human Rights: Khodorkovsky Case

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, for raising this matter tonight. After the end of the Soviet Union, I had a long involvement in Russia with both churches and organisations for disadvantaged children and young people. In the course of this, I met Mr Khodorkovsky when he was a free man visiting London. I was impressed by him and by his efforts to make Yukos Oil a normal, responsible and transparent internationally quoted company. I also admired the work of the Open Russia Foundation that he started, which sought to make the young Russian generation full participants in a globalised world.

I agree that Mr Khodorkovsky may have breached an informal agreement with his Government by taking a position in politics. However, it is worth noting that he returned voluntarily to Russia in 2003 when he could have stayed abroad and joined other exiled oligarchs. He went back to prove his innocence, and in solidarity with his partner, Mr Platon Lebedev, who had by then been arrested. In the same year, the then chairman of the Russian President’s advisory commission on the judiciary said of the trial:

“There are more features of political games here than of justice”.

It is also true that his legal counsel was harassed and wrongly called as a witness. In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights found that Mr Lebedev’s trial had violated international law, and in 2011 it awarded damages to both men. Have these damages yet been paid?

The fate of Yukos Oil was also most unsatisfactory. Its assets were compulsorily sold for less than full value to semi-state companies such as Gazprom and Rosneft. It is likely that the treatment was a breach of the Energy Charter Treaty 1994, to which Russia was a party. The fact that Russia got away with this behaviour led naturally to BP’s bad experience in its joint venture with TNK, and to Shell’s serious problems over Sakhalin Island.

I turn to the second trial, which took place over 21 months in 2009-10 and led to a prison sentence of 13 and a half years. It is highly relevant that it was criticised by Russian institutions as well as by the International Bar Association and Amnesty International. More important critics were our Foreign Secretary and the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, on behalf of the EU. A further point is that the location of Mr Khodorkovsky’s imprisonment may have violated Russia’s criminal executorial code, which states that convicted persons should be held in their home region and not sent to Siberia. The implications for visits from their family and others are obvious.

A wise former British ambassador to Russia commented on the case in 2009. He wrote that our two countries had many common interests and that it was unwise to expect a rapid Russian evolution to the full rule of law and democracy, but that nevertheless Her Majesty’s Government should stand by the European Convention on Human Rights and Russia’s other international obligations, and should make clear their abhorrence of Russian behaviour in the Litvinenko case, over Abkhazia and South Ossetia and over the cyberattack on Estonia.

In the light of this advice and of this debate, what is the Government’s response? Will they press the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to bring forward consideration of pending applications by Khodorkovsky and Lebedev? This, along with a strong British response, could prevent the holding of a third trial of the two men. It could also lend some protection to Mr Alexei Navalny, who has already been mentioned in the debate. He is a Russian anti-corruption lawyer and opposition leader who faces a five-year sentence. I urge the Government to take up this matter very strongly and not to let it fade away.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Bates; I had not realised that he was there waiting to speak. I join in his congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, not only on embarking on this debate but on giving us an extremely concise and excellent description of the whole of the Khodorkovsky case. He did it in a brilliant way.

I am rather like the noble Lord, Lord Hylton: I know Mr Khodorkovsky to some extent. I have come across him when I have spoken or been lecturing at various higher education institutions in Moscow and in other parts of Russia. What I can say about him is that he is an extremely direct man. He is not very good at the more gracious elements of the language, but he cannot stop himself from speaking out honestly about the things that concern him, the things that he thinks are wrong. He is also a man of that rather rare Russian characteristic, an almost crazy kind of courage. One can say to him and to other Russian dissidents that perhaps it is unwise to speak out, that it may be foolish to fall out with the authorities, but they are almost unable to be stopped, in many ways. They have the kind of almost crazy kind of courage that one associates with the work of Dostoevsky or Chekhov. It is still there.

That brings me to what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said. Alongside the long list of terrible misjudgments, unfairnesses and abuses, about which my noble friends Lord Trimble and Lord Alderdice have already spoken, it is also true of Russia that there is always an amazing new harvest of attempts to get freedom going again. NGOs spring up like grass in the spring. New parties spring up all over the place; they die and come back again. What is very striking about Russia—and one can see it slowly moving on—is the level of growing commitment among young Russians to something resembling not so much the rule of law as the rule of liberty, and their willingness to put themselves at risk in order to achieve it.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, spoke about the efforts that Mr Khodorkovsky had made to try to deal with the plight of disadvantaged and abandoned children, for example. He supported them financially in a courageous and not at all prejudiced way. It does not seem to have done him any good, but there is no doubt that he went out of his way to spend money for that purpose. He also went out of his way to spend money on educating young Russians, and has been willing to take part in quite risky episodes of opposition. One that I might refer to involved Pussy Riot, which has been mentioned. In prison, Mr Khodorkovsky suddenly made public statements about his support for them, which seemed to many of us a rather extraordinary thing to do.

What can we do about it? There is a real prospect of a new generation in Russia which is much more open to democracy than the present one. Yet it sees itself as having a President who talks the language of the old Tsars, because they were brilliant at imprisoning almost everybody. That was their favourite way of silencing opposition and Mr Putin seems to be following in that tradition.

There are three points to make. One was implied by my noble friend Lord Bates. He is quite right to ask whether there might not be reactions in the market to attempts to stop, for example, innovation and technical and other relationships with other countries. That is something that we have not explored sufficiently and is something that Mr Putin would understand; perhaps much better than a great many other fine moral statements about freedom, which all of us share but which appear to cut little ice with the Russian President.

The second area, which is extremely important, is where we can exercise influence through the many other links we have with Russia: educational, musical, artistic and so forth. The third area—which I shall be quite blunt about—is something that we as a country might want to consider rather more carefully: which Russians we allow to come and rest in our country and which Russians we might find not fully acceptable. There is something that, in a way, grinds on one’s mind when we allow such a string of Russian oligarchs with dodgy pasts in terms of their behaviour in the economic world by seizing Russia’s resources and exploiting them, then to come to Britain where they will be protected by the police in order to pursue obscure rows with one another, which are then dealt with in the British courts. There is something odd about the fact that it is not Russian dissidents, asylum seekers and courageous, outspoken men and women who come to this country, but increasingly people who come here almost entirely because of the assets they hold and the money they have. We will often find that those seeking asylum are likely to be turned back.

I once again praise my noble friend Lord Trimble and thank him for bringing this debate before us. I also thank my noble friend Lord Alderdice for what he had to say. It was important to speak about the long string of Russian crimes, sentences and misjudgments, and to say loud and clear that we need to exercise over a much wider range than we have so far sought to do, steps that will make it very difficult for Russians to continue to do what they are doing with Khodorkovsky.

I end by saying what my noble friend Lord Trimble has talked about: for example, exploring money-laundering practices, washing and cleaning out money which has come by dubious methods. This is something that we should explore. The OECD has just mounted new action in this field. Perhaps that is something that we should look at, which might speak more loudly to President Putin than most of the statements we might make—even in the most oratorically splendid ways—in this House and elsewhere.

Iran

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will re-establish full diplomatic relations with Iran to coincide with the inauguration of President Hassan Rouhani on 3 August.

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi)]

My Lords, diplomatic relations between the UK and Iran are not severed, but they are at their lowest levels possible. Our respective embassies are closed, but Sweden looks after UK interests in Iran and Oman looks after Iranian interests in the UK. Until we can be confident that Iran will abide by its obligations to protect our staff and allow them to carry out their functions, we cannot have a diplomatic presence in Tehran.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I thank the Minister for that rather disappointing Answer and point out that President-elect Rouhani was not only elected by a clear majority on the first ballot of the Iranian people but had a majority of more than 12 million people over his nearest rival, the mayor of Tehran. In the past week, he has not only called for the clergy to cease to interfere in the private lives of Iranians and called upon Iranian state television and radio to address Iran’s problems much more honestly and fairly, but has also said that the young people of Iran will benefit from having clear access to the internet.

Given that, and also given that there are now thousands of young Iranians on the streets praising their new president, might we as a country not make at least some gesture, at the point at which he becomes the elected president on 3 August, which will re-open lines of contact more closely between Britain and Iran. France and other European nations are already establishing their willingness to work more closely with the new Government.

[Baroness Warsi]

My noble friend has much more practical experience on this issue than I. Having visited the country on a number of occasions, she has seen the situation on the ground. I can assure her that we are open to an improvement in the relationship between the United Kingdom and Iran. I acknowledge that this was a predominantly peaceful election with a large turnout and that Mr Rouhani, who will be inaugurated as president in August, has described his win as “victory over extremism”.

Having said that, it is important that we see these words translated into action: there is a whole series of issues on which we want to see a positive approach from Iran. We also have to acknowledge and accept that, although the election was positive and decisive, a very large number of candidates—678—were disqualified, including all 30 of the women who wanted to stand.

Syria

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I agree with the noble Lord that the only way in which this matter will eventually be resolved will be through a political solution. It is important that we bear in mind the change in circumstances. As the noble Lord is aware, we have at stages changed the way that the arms embargo has been applied. We started by providing very basic equipment such as cameras and satellite phones, and training, with a view to making sure that the abuses that were being committed in Syria were documented. We then stepped that up: we supplied generators, water purification tablets and other items of humanitarian support. However, after January of this year, when the arms embargo was amended, we stepped up support again and this time provided protective gear and protective armoured vehicles. We are seeking a further amendment to increase the pressure on the Assad regime to say that, at this stage, no options are off the table.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, let us hope and pray that the Russian-American conference will be successful. We should give it every possible support. I suggest to my noble friend that one of the things we might do at the upcoming G8 discussions is to try to recruit as many people as possible to commit themselves to funding the huge refugee problem in Turkey and in Jordan. She will be well aware that Jordan is almost breaking under the strain. Sadly, in the past few days, for the first time, we have seen refugees from Syria being turned back because Jordan, which is a well intentioned state, is simply unable to deal with them. Will she consider suggesting that Ministers at the G8 make the best pitch they possibly can to get multilateral support for the refugees in Turkey and, even more, in Jordan?

[Baroness Warsi]

I always listen with great interest to my noble friend’s comments. She comes to these matters with great expertise. Of course, I share her concerns. There has been the largest humanitarian aid appeal ever, of $1.5 billion—71% of that has been funded, but it is still tragically underfunded. The latest Friends of Syria meeting, which took place in April, was about making sure that donor countries that had pledged actually put their money on the table. We have seen an increase, and we continue to push for that increase. The Foreign Secretary is today in Oman, again at a core group of the Friends of Syria meeting, to build the basic foundations for a political solution to be more likely at the Geneva meeting. Of course, the issue of humanitarian aid will be discussed there, as it will be at the G8 meeting.

Nuclear Disarmament

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I do not think that I can say anything more strongly than the speech we have just heard from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall. It shows how great will be our loss in not having his company and advice on this most important of issues. We are all deeply in his debt for once again so frankly speaking truth to power, as he has done all his life, and for his illustrious and remarkable military career, starting with the Military Cross and going all the way up to becoming Commander-in-Chief of the British Land Forces and also—something which I want to mention on personal grounds—his distinguished action as Colonel of the 2nd Gurkha Rifles. I mention that because my son-in-law, who died earlier this year, was a junior officer in the 2nd Gurkha Rifles. He served in Hong Kong and in that neighbourhood, including Malaya. Over many years he told me that nobody was more admired by the Gurkhas than the Field Marshal, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, who did so much to help and assist them in their deep dependence on this country and their deep service to it.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for whom I have immense respect, for initiating this debate. I hope that I will show not excessive trepidation in drawing attention to two things that he said with which, with the greatest respect, I cannot agree. First, he said that there had been no willingness to review or publish thoughts about, and details of the work being done on, the review of Trident. That is not true. I have in my hand the mid-term review of the coalition. It states:

“We will complete and publish the review of alternatives to Trident”.

That statement cost some members of the coalition quite a lot. It was quite a battle to get those words in—but they are in, they are part of the mid-term review and they will be respected.

My second point to the noble Lord is that the person who was the subject of a long interview in the Guardian on Monday was not the shadow Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the distinguished Mr Douglas Alexander, but Mr Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Few people in the Government could know more about the cost of Trident and, if I may say so, could have made as acute, perceptive and distinguished a contribution to the debate as he did. Anybody who reads it will know why I say that. It was an extraordinarily candid piece.

Thirdly, I refer to another contribution in the Guardian. It was made by a former Minister for the Armed Forces, my friend Nicholas Harvey. He was an excellent Minister and he wrote a very candid and frank article in which he cast as much doubt on whether it was wise to go ahead with Trident as a former Minister possibly could. He spoke in terms as eloquent and forceful as those of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

I will turn quickly to some of the issues. First, the structure of control and governance over nuclear weapons has essentially rested on treaties signed by the so-called P5—the recognised, official nuclear powers. One of the first treaties set up the IAEA, which is a major inspector of nuclear weapons developments. The second, which sadly has never been ratified by the United States, was the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. The third was the attempt to get a fissile material treaty that would cut off fissile materials. That would mean in effect that it would become almost impossible to develop further nuclear weapons because no fissile materials would be fed into the process. The final one, which I mention in passing, was the attempt to bring about a tougher inspection system, of which the additional protocol is at the heart.

I believe very strongly that the President of the United States, in his re-elected second term, will be determined to proceed further, and as far as he possibly can, with these crucial treaties. Already there is evidence from members of the President’s staff that he is utterly determined to do that. There is also stronger evidence in his remarkable appointment of a new Secretary of State, Senator Kerry, to succeed the excellent Mrs Clinton; and, secondly and perhaps even more significantly, in his appointment of Senator Hagel as Defence Secretary. It was a most unexpected appointment. Senator Hagel has had the courage to speak out against any military action against Iran, and to say quite a few things that echo what the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, said about the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons, and the fact that therefore they should not be used except in the most extreme circumstances. The appointment of these two gentlemen, both of them highly controversial in American politics and not likely to be totally welcomed by all members of Congress, is clear evidence of what the President intends to do. I believe that he will take matters as far as he possibly can, with the support of his allies—that is important—in the next four years of his presidency.

I will go back for a moment to say something about each of the treaties. The CTBT has long been resisted by the United States, and equally by other countries including China. It is critical that we should try to pass it now. Secondly, the START agreement was passed by a very narrow majority in the US Congress. It opens up the prospect of major reductions in nuclear arsenals. The treaty has been passed but not yet implemented. If it were implemented, we would see a dramatic decline in the arsenals of nuclear weapons that—here I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham—serve no useful purpose at all and tend to decline in effectiveness over the years.

The Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty has been blocked for the past few years at the conference on disarmament in Geneva by one country: Pakistan. That is very serious and we need to think very hard about ways to get around that. Since Pakistan’s major fear is not Russia or China but India, I will say that the whole world owes a huge debt to the present Prime Minister of India, Mr Manmohan Singh, for flatly refusing to retaliate after the Mumbai and Delhi terror attacks. It is one of those moments in history when one has to be grateful, for the safety of the whole world, to just one brave politician. He was exactly that in refusing to retaliate against a major attack on Mumbai. Nobody knows who made it, but many people suspected a body in Pakistan. Thirdly in the list of treaties, there is a real chance that we may be able to move ahead also on the additional protocol now signed by a number of member states of the IAEA. This is absolutely critical if we are to have effective inspection.

If there were time, I would love to turn to a number of other, very serious issues: for example, China’s commitment to the no-first-use doctrine, which although helpful has acted as a block to much of the thinking about nuclear weapons and about the way in which we might develop an effective system of controlling them. However, I will echo the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, in saying that we live and move in a very different world from that of 30 years ago. As the noble and gallant Lord eloquently said, there is very little point in having nuclear weapons, and certainly in having nuclear weapons continuously at sea. Our main fears are of terrorism or possibly a serious accident—to both of which a nuclear deterrent is irrelevant.

The other main point to make about the new developments, many of them in the laboratories of the United States armed forces, is that, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, they are moving towards cyberwarfare and increasingly precisely targeted weapons, including some of the conventional weapons that today terrify Russia. Russia is scared stiff that the United States is rapidly overtaking it in terms of conventional warfare. Therefore, it depends increasingly on nuclear deterrence, which in many ways is becoming irrelevant.

I will end my remarks by saying that for many years between the wars—this is relevant to the discussions we will have in the coming year about the First World War—there was a deep belief in France that the Maginot Line was an unassailable and invulnerable defence. Right up to the beginning of the Second World War, the French military continued to believe in the Maginot Line, which lasted a matter of days and was then gone. Like the Great Wall of China, it was a deterrent that did not work. I suggest strongly that we should look to the developments in cyberwarfare, which are terrifying, and at developments in robot warfare, of which we have the example of the drone, which is used increasingly in Pakistan and Afghanistan and is likely now to be used in west Africa, in countries such as Somalia and other out-of-control states, and ask whether Trident is relevant, and whether nuclear weapons are relevant.

I will conclude with a final thank you that deserves to be part of this debate. One of the listed speakers is the noble Lord, Lord Wood. For some time he was an adviser to the previous Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Mr Brown gets a lot of criticism, but with the help of the noble Lord, Lord Wood, he probably took greater steps in reducing to its bare, effective minimum the British nuclear deterrent, in working on verification and in seeking to get wider agreements to reduce the power of nuclear weapons, as far as this could be done. It is appropriate and right that we should remember that we owe him something for that substantial contribution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wood of Anfield]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, for a provocative and quite brilliant contribution today. It makes me wish I had heard all his contributions over the previous 25 years or so. I offer him my best wishes for the future.

There was a time when the ambition to make progress in disarmament was considered a sign of naivety in international affairs. I am pleased to say, as this excellent debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has demonstrated, that this is no longer true and that the commitment to multilateral disarmament is shared by those of all parties and no party.

This is as true internationally as it is of the debate in Britain. To quote President Obama, the ambition,

“to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons”,

has in the past few years come to enjoy support from American Administrations, both Republican and Democrat, Presidents of the Soviet Union and of Russia and the Global Zero campaign’s advocates, who include a roll call of distinguished figures from dozens of countries.

It is worth reminding ourselves why multilateral disarmament is so vital to the world’s safety and security. First, the end of the Cold War marked the expiry of Cold War security doctrines that relied so heavily on nuclear weapons, in particular the American-Soviet deterrence doctrines. Deterrence of course remains crucial, but relying excessively on nuclear weapons to do the deterring is not only more hazardous, but less effective in a world where the threats we face are changing in character, where states still threaten but, increasingly, not only states threaten.

Secondly, the international community’s commitment to multilateral disarmament is the corollary of its determination to prevent nuclear proliferation. Maintaining minimally sufficient arsenals, inside an international legal framework that has verified constraints on nuclear weapons, is the only way to combine national security needs with a minimisation of the risks of proliferation. Reversing our reliance on nuclear weapons globally is integral to preventing their proliferation into dangerous hands. However, there is a moral pressure point here, too. If we demand that states without nuclear weapons commit to never having them, possessor states have a duty and self-interest to take the necessary steps towards co-ordinated disarmament. It is the bargain at the heart of the non-proliferation treaty, and as concerns about North Korea, Iran and nuclear terrorism increase, its logic becomes more, not less, compelling.

Over the past 25 years, I am proud to say that Britain has been a leader both in its own unilateral actions and internationally. We have eliminated two complete weapons systems. We are the only possessor country to have a deterrent based on just one system. We have reduced the number of warheads by 75% since the end of the Cold War, so that we now have less than 1% of the global stockpile. We have led the way on nuclear security through our global threat reduction programme, which has helped nearly 20 beneficiary countries so far. We are world leaders in innovation in the development of proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel cycles and in proposals such as a generalisable nuclear fuel guarantee. I pay tribute to this Government for continuing our leadership on reducing dependence on nuclear weapons with their decision to reduce the number of operational warheads and reducing our overall stockpile.

That is a strong moral lead, and it puts the UK in a position to be a demandeur with our allies and beyond, and to make real and continuing progress in multilateral disarmament. As Malcolm Rifkind said last year at the Munich Security Conference, momentum is everything. 2009-10 was, as many speakers have said, in many respects a period of optimism. There was the innovation of the nuclear security summit cycle; a new START treaty and the NPT Review Conference in 2010. However, that momentum has now stalled. Optimism about further progress in US-Russia disarmament discussions is hard to find. Progress on the outcomes of the 2010 NPT conference has been limited at best. The attention of the possessor states is rightly focused on the dangers posed by Iran, North Korea and others, but the price has been a further detachment between the twin goals of non-proliferation and multilateral disarmament. Meanwhile, there is the continuing backdrop of China, India and Pakistan focusing more on expanding and modernising their nuclear weapons capacity than seeking to limit it.

It is not our responsibility alone to prioritise regaining this momentum, but it is our responsibility. With the start of the second term of President Obama’s Administration, we have a chance to try to restore American focus on this issue, too.

What needs to be done? I think the challenges lie in four different areas, and I ask for the Minister’s view on the Government’s plans in each. First, we need to restore energy to building the architecture of treaties and regimes that breed confidence, and that attempt to bring as many states as possible into the net of international legal obligations around nuclear weapons, nuclear material and nuclear security.

Specifically, we have slightly less than two years to show concrete progress on the range of commitments under the NPT Treaty before the 2014 PrepCom meeting. What are the UK’s priorities? The Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty still awaits the signatures of eight countries that hold nuclear technology. Key to this is the United States. President Obama has said that he will pursue ratification with the Senate. Can the Minister reassure us that we are using our relationship with the White House and State Department to ensure that he lives up to this commitment?

I also ask the Minister for her assessment of the prospects of two other initiatives. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, mentioned, the postponement of the Helsinki conference for a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons suggests bleak prospects, but I hope that she can provide some silver lining. What are the prospects for the elusive fissile material cut-off treaty? They should have improved since President Obama reversed the Americans’ long-standing problem with verification methods. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, pointed out, Pakistan is a stumbling block here. Will the Minister say what pressure is being brought to bear on the Pakistani Government?

Secondly, we need to continue momentum in measures to increase nuclear security. This is crucial to confidence-building, perhaps more than anything else, and is key to unlocking progress on both the non-proliferation and the disarmament fronts. The nuclear security summits cycle has been one of the best developments in recent years. The summits have led to important first steps in areas such as safe disposal of highly enriched uranium. Britain has led the way in this area—in research work, in international assistance to other states, and in transparency by opening up to review missions from the IAEA. Will the Minister confirm that the UK is on course to meet its commitments for the next nuclear security summit in Holland and outline its agenda for that summit?

Thirdly, we need to build on the real achievements of the START treaty signed in 2010 by Russia and the USA in significantly reducing the numbers of deployed strategic warheads and missile launchers, and in achieving some progress on monitoring and inspections. That treaty looked for a while as though it would be the prelude to further milestones on US-Russia co-operation on disarmament. As many speakers have said, sadly, that has not materialised. What does the Minister think is a realistic ambition for phase 2 of the START process? How can the UK play a supporting role in helping to bring that about?

There is one area in particular where I believe there exists widespread support for a major breakthrough; namely, the goal of NATO and Russia removing all tactical nuclear weapons from combat bases on the European continent. Attachments to legacies of the Cold War with little or no credible deterrence capability drains valuable resources from an alliance facing up to new kinds of threats, such as those potentially in north Africa. The Global Zero Commission, which the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, along with Malcolm Rifkind, David Miliband and others, has supported so vigorously, has called for the withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons from Europe to be the next disarmament priority. Do the Government share that view?

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I am listening very closely to the noble Lord’s setting out of the policy of the Opposition. Given that the British nuclear deterrent, as has already been pointed out, is about the smallest of any of the nuclear powers, does he believe that the next step for this country would be to look again at continuous-at-sea?

[Lord Wood of Anfield]

The noble Baroness has interrupted just as I was about to come to that issue. There are also issues around Britain’s own deterrent which have been widely discussed today. We must ensure that disarmament activity is conducted in a transparent and verifiable manner. That is why the previous Government initiated their work with Norway on verifiable warhead dismantlement, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and hosted the first P5 consultations on disarmament in London in September 2009. The dangers of nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and insecurity around nuclear materials should make us more determined than ever to achieve co-ordinated disarmament but they also continue to justify our retention of the minimum capacity needed to achieve our deterrence objectives. Coming to the noble Baroness’s point, we in this party have said that we are open to examining any new evidence since our review of Britain’s nuclear weapons arsenal in 2006 and we will consider its findings alongside other studies, such as the cross-party BASIC Trident Commission, which is chaired by my noble friend Lord Browne, to see if there are credible alternatives.

In our view, that examination should have two priorities—capability and cost. With that in mind, we look forward to the publication of the Trident Alternatives Review, which Danny Alexander tantalisingly said this week,

“will set out a clear, credible, compelling, set of arguments for alternatives”.

He flagged up that there may be seven or eight alternatives in the mix. Will the Minister clarify how open her part of the Government is to the alternatives that might arise from that?

Lastly, there is a group of more conceptual although equally crucial issues around the doctrines that make up our security concepts. I appreciate that there are limits to what the Minister can say on UK thinking on these issues but perhaps she will say whether the Government are alive to making progress on defence concepts that are less dependent on nuclear weapons and whether NATO is planning to address this issue in any way.

John F Kennedy remarked:

“The world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution”.

He also said:

“Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment … The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us”.

That was more than 50 years ago at a time in history that now seems a world away. But it was a time that was, if anything, more ordered in terms of nuclear security than the one we live in now. The nuclear era in the wake of the Cold War is much more hazardous and more economically burdensome. The goal of a world free of nuclear weapons may seem a dim prospect at the moment. But just as the difficulty of preventing nuclear proliferation should inspire us to redouble our efforts to contain the spread of nuclear technology, so the difficulty of maintaining momentum on multilateral disarmament should inspire us to be leaders among nuclear weapons states in the future.

Korean Peninsula

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, one of my favourite political quotations is the famous remark of Edmund Burke that for evil to triumph requires only that good men remain silent. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, and his colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, are wonderful examples of good men and good women not remaining silent. The courage that was required to visit North Korea time and again in the face of all kinds of discouragements, fears and threats is greatly to the credit of them both, and they stand as Members of this House with every possible right to claim the respect and admiration of us all.

I begin by saying about North Korea that it is, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord Alton, implied, a deeply traumatised state. It is a state with a very strong history of being victimised—by the Japanese, by the Chinese and by those in other countries—and one that has never really recovered its balance from that terrible history. The strange thing about North Korea—and in this respect I think it is unlike Iran—is that the idea that one might sacrifice one’s population to a nuclear attack does not seem to cross the minds of the North Korean regime in the way that I think it crosses the minds of all other regimes, including nuclear powers, such as India and Pakistan, and would-be nuclear powers, such as Iran. North Korea has destroyed or allowed the destruction of such a large part of its civilian population that the one great barrier against using a nuclear weapon—the fear of losing one’s own population—probably has less effect in North Korea than in any other country on the face of the earth. That is the most frightening thing about North Korea. It looks like a county whose regime would be capable of using a nuclear weapon because in the end saving the regime is more important than saving the population.

Let us look briefly at the security history, although I wholly take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that that is in many ways secondary to the terrible, indescribably awful human rights regime that has been conducted for so long by this extraordinarily strange dynasty of Kim Il-sung and his successors, which has become a kind of secondary religious heresy demanding the deification of its own leadership. The story in North Korea is one of having walked away altogether from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty—the NPT—to which it originally belonged. It walked away from the NPT in order to breach some of the key provisions, one of the most important being that there would not be a continuation by its members of nuclear testing in the face of what has not been a new treaty, tragically, but what has certainly been a very long period of postponement and delay when no nuclear power, with the single exception of North Korea, has continued to test nuclear weapons. Other countries are frightening in their own way, but this direct breach of this key provision, widely morally accepted, if not legally accepted, is an extremely disturbing fact.

North Korea has about five or six nuclear bombs, based, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, rightly said, on the use of plutonium, ironically originally provided as part of the nuclear materials for peace movement in the United States in the 1970s. It broke the understanding and conditions of that provision of nuclear materials for peace by deliberately saving the plutonium from that programme and using it as the origins of its relatively small nuclear arsenal. The best information we have is that something between six and eight fully realised nuclear weapons are owned by North Korea. That is one of the smallest nuclear arsenals in the world but it is still one capable of creating immense and savage destruction.

North Korea went ahead to produce a great many short-range ballistic missiles—we believe that it has some hundreds—and also medium-range ballistic missiles, of which it certainly has scores. What it has failed to do so far, with the exception that I shall come to in a moment, is to produce intercontinental ballistic missiles, which has become a major objective of the regime. By an intercontinental ballistic missile, we mean one with a range of more than 3,000 miles, capable of reaching Japan certainly, but also the west coast of the United States. The first attempt by North Korea in 2009 to develop an ICBM failed rather obviously and conspicuously and was noted with some satisfaction by the rest of the world. Tragically, only a month ago, on 12 December 2012, once again the regime—this time of Kim Jong-un, the son of Kim Jong-il—was successful and the missile managed to find its way across Japan, flying high above Japan but nevertheless into Japanese airspace, before it crashed some time later into the Pacific. It was clearly a successful intercontinental launch.

At the moment, the belief generally held in the nuclear weapons community is that North Korea has not been able to miniaturise nuclear warheads to the point where the relatively small or low-power ICBMs it may be producing could carry them intercontinentally to a country such as the United States. But even having said that, the fact that it is now capable of launching such a package, although not yet miniaturising it to a point that it becomes effective, is obviously not far away from what could be a fully fledged ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead.

The one piece of relatively good news is that the speech that the new “Young Leader” of North Korea made a few weeks ago to mark his taking over of power—although there was very little in it that was not Orwellian in its terminology and philosophy—contained a small sign of light when he spoke of creating a movement towards some kind of peaceful agreement with South Korea. The possibility therefore arises, which might be worth pursuing, of a non-nuclear Korean peninsula which fits into the pattern of the non-nuclear zones which have now been established from Latin America, by way of Africa, to parts of Asia.

The offer lies on the table, as it has for several years, in the six-plus-one peace talks, of which North Korea is a member, that in return for a decision to end nuclear testing and development and fully to accept the additional protocol of the nuclear peace treaty, North Korea would then have opened to it investment, supplies of food aid and a willingness to allow it to rejoin the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out, that is a fairly distant hope at the present time for a country as strange as this one. If anyone deserves such a response and the good will of the rest of the world, then the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and his colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, do. They have gone as far as human beings who are not themselves in government can go to try to bring it about.

EU: UK’s National and Trade Interests

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The Government believe that we can have a better Europe and that Europe can be reformed with a view to increasing those real benefits that come from the European Union.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, when the Prime Minister speaks later this week, will he draw attention, as the Minister has done, to the significance of the single market, which was strongly supported by Mrs Thatcher, to the insistence of many of our closest allies, such as the United States and the leading countries of the Commonwealth, that our influence within the EU is vital to the position of the West in the world’s global discussions, and to some of the outstanding developments in global fields, for example, on climate change and not least on organised crime, which have been successful examples of British influence within the EU and of EU influence within the world more generally?

[Baroness Warsi]

My noble friend raises a very important issue and these are matters that will be raised. It is important that we value our relationship with the European Union. My noble friend quite rightly raises the issue of our place in the world. On foreign policy, for example, I know that the work we did on smart sanctions against Iran’s nuclear programme, against the Burmese regime to encourage democratic reform and against the Syrian regime was possible because we worked collectively.

Iran

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

Iran’s development of military nuclear power is a matter of concern for many more countries than just Israel. It is why we have United Nations Security Council resolutions in relation to this matter and it is why we have tried to negotiate with Iran over a number of years. It is important to continue those negotiations and discussions. These are concerns that we in this country have too.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

Does the Minister agree that only a few weeks ago Mr Soltanieh, the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA, specifically indicated that Iran was now open to the possibility of bilateral discussions with the United States, and that President Obama has reflected this in his recent views expressed within the United States? Finally, according to recent polling by the Knowledge Forum, a clear majority in the United States is now clearly in favour of discussions and diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran, beginning as soon as possible.

[Baroness Warsi]

Of course, we raise this matter in discussions with the United States but it has to be for the United States to take these discussions forward with Iran if it feels that that is the right way forward. As we do with a number of countries, we encourage it to take all opportunities to have these discussions. The findings of the poll that my noble friend refers to very much reflect the opinion of all of us in this House, and indeed the public, that the better way to resolve this matter is not through military action.

Arms Trade Treaty

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is on to something, which he has been on to before. He has been second to none in arguing the case for a robust treaty. Indeed, it is the Government’s view that this treaty should be robust and that a weak treaty which would have the effect of legitimising lower standards of arms control, arms export, arms import, arms trade and arms transport would be no addition at all. He is entirely correct that this needs to be a robust treaty. We have aimed for that. We believe that certain things are in reach. Countries which appeared to be extremely negative to start with are now taking a more positive and constructive attitude, and we aim to make substantial progress on a robust treaty.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

Perhaps I may say how very welcome the reply of the Minister has been, as was the speech by the Minister for International Development in the past few days. Given that 153 of the 193 member states of the United Nations have strongly supported the arms trade treaty, will the Minister say whether in the last analysis we would be prepared to walk away from an agreement based on a weak consensus?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am not totally clear of my noble friend’s question. She supports what has been achieved and, as she rightly says, a considerable number of countries have signed up. However, countries which we thought might be much more reluctant have not done so. Certainly, there are key issues yet to be finalised on weapons to be covered and export criteria. These are difficulties. If my noble friend’s question was whether we would walk away if it looked like too weak a treaty, I say that we do not intend that to happen. We intend the treaty to be at least where it is now, with broad agreement discussed on many crucial issues and out of which we can produce a robust treaty.