Japan and the Middle East

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me try to reassure my hon. Friend, and through him people who are concerned about this matter. There is no intention to get involved in another war or to see an invasion or massive amounts of ground troops. That is not what is being looked at. What is being looked at is how we can tighten the pressure on an unacceptable, illegitimate regime to give that country some chance of peaceful transition. We would let down ourselves and the Libyan people if we did nothing and said that it was all too difficult. My hon. Friend’s point about Afghanistan is a good one, but I would argue that the real lesson is that the mistake of the west was to forget about Afghanistan and take its eyes off that country, rather than building and investing there when it was making progress. Instead we left it alone, and we have since suffered the consequences.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Was there any discussion at the European Council about the situation in Yemen? The Prime Minister will know that the situation has deteriorated badly, with violence spreading to many cities. It is surely not in anyone’s interests, apart from al-Qaeda, for Yemen to drift into civil war. What can we do to help the Yemeni Government to stabilise the situation, but to continue with the reforms?

[The Prime Minister]

We did discuss the wider region. The country that is probably of the most concern at the moment is Yemen, which the right hon. Gentleman often raises in this House. Again, it is clearly in our interests that the Yemeni Government respond with reform rather than repression. Yemen is a particularly special case because of the great presence of al-Qaeda and our need to encourage its Government to take on the terrorism in their country. The situation is obviously extremely difficult and we keep it under permanent review, not least to ensure that we keep safe the British citizens who are there.