Turkey

Debate between David Lammy and Alan Duncan

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

My hon. Friend is right to comment on the hard work of the Foreign Secretary. His list of important rights is something that we could apply to pretty much any country in the world, including Turkey.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on being one of the House’s great comeback kings. He will definitely be able to keep the Secretary of State on the straight and narrow.

Does the Minister recognise the concern in constituencies such as mine, which has the largest Turkish-speaking population in the country, that the manner in which the west behaves towards Erdogan is frankly similar to how we behaved towards Mubarak? Erdogan is stretching democracy beyond belief—putting Syrians into Kurdish areas to dilute the Kurdish influence in his country cannot be right. Will the Minister be clear about how Erdogan treats the Kurdish minority in his country?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I understand what the right hon. Gentleman says. Given the Turkish population in his constituency, I am happy to offer him a face-to-face meeting to talk through the issues. We share the same value system and will have some difficult problems to resolve in the region with a collapsed Syria and terrorist pressure on Turkey, which is not free of such pressures and must work out how to handle them. We must appreciate that the issues are complicated, and I would welcome the right hon. Gentleman through the door of my office to discuss them in person.