Counter-terrorism

John Baron Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is a good point, and how the Americans have behaved over the burial—the fact that it was done in a proper Muslim way, and so forth—will help in that regard. Frankly, I do not think there is any magic button we can push or any magic campaign we can run. It is for all of us to make sure that people understand the evil this man did, the pernicious ideology he was pushing, and the fact that it led to a complete dead end for a generation of young Muslim men. If we make that argument, we can win that argument.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Bin Laden’s death will be a severe setback for al-Qaeda, but as the Prime Minister knows, there are relatively few al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and there are real differences between the Taliban and al-Qaeda, which could be worth exploring to provide a way forward. Will the Prime Minister therefore do more to urge the Americans to have open, meaningful, non-conditional talks with the Taliban? As we showed in Northern Ireland, it is possible to fight and talk at the same time.

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make to my hon. Friend is that while there are clearly differences between the Taliban and al-Qaeda, there are at the moment still links between them. The Taliban are not currently willing to break the link with al-Qaeda, but that is a key step that needs to be taken in making sure that they can enter some sort of political dialogue and settlement in Afghanistan. It is not acceptable to ask Afghan democrats, and President Karzai and others, to have conversations with people who, even at the end of those conversations, are still going to be committed to violence and overthrowing all of the Afghan constitution, and who are going to be linked to a group of terrorists—al-Qaeda—which has done so much damage not just to Pakistan, but to Afghanistan itself.