Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

As the hon. Lady says, those elections are due in 2014. Over previous elections the Afghan state, supported by the international security assistance force, has shown an increasing capability to administer elections safely. I am sure that that capability will increase much further over the next two years, given that the build-up of the Afghan national security forces is continuing. As she knows, it is our intention that by the end of 2014 the Afghan national security forces will be able to conduct security all over Afghanistan for themselves, and that includes supervising elections.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

T8. Given the growing tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran, which are extremely worrying, what are we doing to upgrade our diplomatic support to Azerbaijan, which is both politically and economically extremely important to this country?

[Mr Hague]

We have good links with Azerbaijan, particularly given its current membership of the UN Security Council—it joined a few months ago. So our diplomatic contact and co-ordination with Azerbaijan has increased. As to the level of representation, we regularly review that but I do not have any new announcement to make about that at the moment.