Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Simmonds]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue. To reduce and negate the suffering in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, it is essential that we enable humanitarian access to get to these areas as fast as possible, but it is extremely challenging. She might be aware that an agreement was reached in August between the tripartite—the UN, the AU and the Arab League—and signed by the North Sudanese Government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North to allow humanitarian access. We need to ensure that that agreement is implemented as fast as possible to alleviate the suffering.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his new position. The issue of the arms factory that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, mentioned was accompanied by visits by Iranian warships to Khartoum. Will the Minister do all he can to reduce tensions in the region? This is a very unwanted development.

[Mark Simmonds]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We have consistently and strongly encouraged the Government of Sudan to set themselves on a path to becoming a stable, prosperous nation playing a positive role in the region. In that regard, we do not consider such political and military engagement with Iran to be helpful.