Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateJulian Brazier
Main Page: Julian Brazier (Conservative - Canterbury)Department Debates - View all Julian Brazier's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe are now engaging with Iran at a level that we have not done for over a decade, thanks to the nuclear agreement that has been made. That allows us to have more forthright and frank conversations, and we have made it very clear that if Iran wants to join the international community—we want stability in the middle east—it must desist from having an influence in the areas to which the hon. Lady referred.
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s earlier answer, but does he accept that Israel’s decision in 2006 to bomb all parts of Lebanon, including those represented by people who had been fighting Hezbollah for more than a generation, catapulted Hezbollah from a sectional group of extremists right into the heart of the powerbase of the Government of Lebanon?
I visited the country right after those attacks had taken place and the devastation was indeed huge. It is in all our interests not to go down that road again. I pay tribute to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, which has done an amazing job in reducing tensions between the two countries.