ISIL: Iraq and Syria

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As I mentioned earlier, the national security adviser is in Turkey today and will be talking to the Turkish authorities. For operational security reasons, I do not propose—and, I do not propose as a Government—to give a running commentary on which bases in which countries are being used for which operations. What I can say to my right hon. Friend is that control along the Turkish-Syrian and Turkish-Iraqi border has significantly improved over the last few weeks. We have close contact with the Turks on the movement of British-originating potential fighters across that border, and although there is still more that can be done, we are generally very pleased with the advances that have been made over the last few weeks.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Is the Foreign Secretary not concerned about the apparently very close relationship that exists between some elements of the Turkish Government and forces and the ISIL forces? Does he not think that in the long run there has to be a political settlement? That must include the right of self-determination for the Kurdish peoples all across the region, who have frankly been wronged ever since the end of the first world war on the question of their own identity. It is an issue that will simply not go away.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman’s intervention just goes to underline how complex the situation is. We are not dealing with a conflict; we are dealing with a number of conflicts that interact with each other and mean that some of the participants have multiple considerations that they are dealing with when they decide how to act. Progress was being made—has been made—in Turkey over the last couple of years in resolving differences between the Turkish state and its Kurdish population. Significant progress has been made. I am afraid that what is going on now across the region is not helpful to that process and is not taking it forward. I think it is probably premature at this stage to speculate on the end outcome, but clearly the relationship between the different Kurdish groups in the four different countries is a crucial part of the overall conflict.