Iran and Syria

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend is totally right about that. Of course, the purpose of our negotiations is to ensure that concrete actions are taken, even as part of an interim step, to give necessary assurances to the international community and to then allow us to negotiate a comprehensive settlement of this issue. That, of course, means dealing with all the concerns about what the International Atomic Energy Agency calls the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear programme.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that his strategy and that of the other allies around the table is for a nuclear weapon-free middle east? Is it not odd that in a very long statement he did not mention that Israel actually possesses nuclear weapons and a delivery system? Does he envisage a conference on a nuclear weapon-free middle east that will include, obviously, Iran and other countries, but in particular Israel? Otherwise, it would simply make no sense at all.

[Mr Hague]

I do envisage such a conference taking place. I did not mention that in my statement because there were many new things to report, but we have often discussed it in the House. We argued that there should be such a conference during the non-proliferation treaty review in 2010. There has been a small amount of progress in preparing the way for that in the past couple of weeks. I hope that we will have more to say about it in the next month or so.