Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Joan Ryan and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who knows a great deal about Argentina. I will be going there at the end of the month to pursue the current improvement in relations taking place between our two countries.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

President Erdoğan of Turkey, who is currently visiting this country, has called snap elections for 24 June. Those elections will be held under a state of emergency, severely curtailing the freedoms of expression, assembly and association, and the right to take part in public affairs. They will also introduce an executive presidency with wide-ranging powers that many see as an attack on democracy. What is the Government’s view?

[Boris Johnson]

I can tell the right hon. Lady that we had a conference with our Turkish friends only the other day and that, although the relationship between the UK and Turkey is very strong, as she knows, we took every opportunity to raise our concerns about human rights and the repression of the media.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Debate between Joan Ryan and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I would also say that the JCPOA has depended not on trust—not on believing the Iranians—but on independent verification, which has been carried out countless times.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

Many of us who do not support the President’s decision would argue that the JCPOA contains some very serious flaws, including the lack of a clear plan—what happens when the agreement ends in 2025?—the weak inspection regime, the absence of any restraint on Iran’s ballistic missile programme, and the failure to address its pernicious influence in the middle east, not least its repeated threats to annihilate Israel. I hope that the Foreign Secretary is not playing down these flaws. I urge the Government not only to stick with the agreement, but to push to mend it.

[Boris Johnson]

The right hon. Lady speaks a good deal of sense. It is a limitation that there is no agreement on the ballistic missile programme, or indeed on Iran’s wider behaviour in the region, but it would have been impossible to get an agreement on the nuclear dossier if those had been brought in. The United States thinks differently, and the President has a global vision of bringing these dossiers together and solving the problem as one. We have yet to see the detail on how he intends to do it, but we will certainly be as supportive as we can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Joan Ryan and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

We have consistently made clear our concern about Iran’s destabilising and disruptive activity in the region, about its ballistic missile programme —it remains sanctioned by both the EU and the UN— and of course about reported Iranian weapons supplies to the Houthis in Yemen, which would be a violation of UN Security Council resolution 2231. We have set out those concerns with great clarity at the Security Council.

[Joan Ryan]

Iran’s support for terrorist groups across the region, its culpability in the destruction of Syria and its threats to wipe the world’s only Jewish state off the map must obviously be condemned by all, but words are not enough. What action is Britain going to take to combat Iran’s destabilising activities and, as the Foreign Secretary mentioned, its ballistic missile programme?

[Boris Johnson]

We have—indeed, I have personally—made clear to the Iranian leadership at all levels the deep concern we have in this country about the very issues the right hon. Lady raises. In particular, of course, there is the supply—or the alleged supply—of weaponry to the Houthis, the ballistic missile programme and the breaches of Iran’s obligations under UN Security Council resolution 2231. We are raising those issues not just with the Iranians but with our international friends and partners, to put pressure on Iran to desist from those activities.