Turkey

Alex Salmond Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and indeed Secretary Kerry made similar such comments yesterday. As I have just said, retaining an independent judiciary, which will of course require judges working to apply the due process of law, is absolutely essential if we are to see the standards we wish to see upheld in Turkey. I note what my hon. Friend says about NATO. Turkey remains an important ally within NATO and a very valued UK partner, so we encourage Turkey to maintain its democratic institutions and the rule of law as a fundamental part of NATO’s value agenda.

[Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his place, and the spectacular late flowering of his ministerial career. We suspect that he may well be at the Dispatch Box on many occasions, substituting for the absent Foreign Secretary. We also remember the Foreign Secretary’s film, “The Dream of Rome”, in which he advocated Turkey’s immediate succession to the European Union—an argument he later used to justify Brexit and the UK’s removal from the European Union. Can we be assured that there will be no such ambiguity in the messages that now go to Turkey, and that while no responsible Government can support a military coup against a democratic Government, no responsible democratic Government engages in the suppression of civil liberties, the persecution of minority communities such as the Kurds, the imprisonment of thousands of people, the suspension of parliamentary rights, and the reintroduction of the death penalty? Will the Minister make it clear unambiguously to President Erdogan that it is not only membership of the European Union that is at risk from such actions, but also NATO membership?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his description of me—I had never quite seen myself as a hardy perennial in quite the same way. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who has been described as absent, is working furiously. Having been to Brussels already he is due to go to Washington, and he is meeting many European Foreign Ministers today in advance of meetings on Syria and Yemen. It is ill-judged of the right hon. Gentleman to criticise him for deputing me to answer this urgent question.

[Alex Salmond]

It’s his job.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Well I have a job too, which I hope I am doing to the satisfaction of the House as the Foreign Secretary’s deputy. Turkey’s accession to the EU is clearly a long way off, and it is far too soon after events to start making long-term judgments about it. Some might think that it is less of a matter for the UK than it was before 23 June.