EU Council, Security and Middle East

Alistair Burt Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What we must do is convince everyone that it is worth while getting round the table to find a negotiated solution to the fundamental underlying issue of the need for a Palestinian state. To do that, we must persuade the Israelis to make it a greater priority and to understand that that would be the true route to security. We also need to persuade the Palestinians and those who have supported Hamas that terrorist attacks and rocket attacks on Israel will not bring Palestinian statehood closer.

[Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to protect the United Kingdom against the threat that it faces, but the most immediate threat in the region is faced by those states around ISIS which find their borders being dissolved and which first bear the brunt of the need to protect innocent civilians. We can help, and there are those who are bearing a burden even now. Has my right hon. Friend received a specific request for arms from the Kurdish Peshmerga, either directly or through the EU? If he has, how are we responding? If he has not yet received that request, how will the Government respond?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question. So far we have received requests from the Kurds to facilitate the transfer and transport of arms and ammunition from Jordan and Albania to the Kurdish regional authorities. We have done that, and it is absolutely right that we have. I am not aware of a specific request directly from the Kurdish regional authorities for arms and military support, but as I have said before, we would look very favourably on such a request. They are our allies and friends, and we believe that they are helping to put the pressure on ISIL and to defend communities. We very much want them to be part of a future Iraq rather than anything else. With those provisos, we take a very positive view.