Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Our position is a moral one. We are defending the right of people—whether they be Christians, Yazidis, Jews or Muslims—to practise their religion freely against a tyranny that imposes its view by beheadings, rapes and mass deportations. We must end this terror. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that a vital tool in our armoury is the very substantial body of thoughtful, moderate Islamic scholarship around the world. We need to ensure—and when I say “we”, I mean all nations of good will, as this has to be led essentially by the Muslim countries of the world—that that moderate view prevails. We need to help the Muslims of the world reclaim their religion from the extremists.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware of this morning’s appalling news that a Russian bomber has been shot down by a NATO country, Turkey? Is that not potentially extremely dangerous, given that nothing like that happened during the whole of the cold war period? If we are to get a solution in the north of Syria and Iraq, we have to look to building a moderate Sunni regime there. We may have to go back at the end of the war to redraw the boundaries drawn up by Sykes-Picot.

[Mr Hammond]

Our view, and the strong view of, I think, all our partners and allies, is that we need to preserve the territorial integrity of Syria. I can promise my hon. Friend that if we start opening up boundaries in the region, we will prolong the agony.

As for the reports that have been coming in this morning of the shooting down of what was possibly a Russian air force jet near the Turkish-Syrian border, we are seeking further details urgently in both Moscow and Ankara. Clearly this was potentially a serious incident, but I do not think it would be wise to comment any further until we have more certainty about the facts.