Japan and the Middle East

Malcolm Rifkind Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions, and I particularly welcome what he said about Japan and the common ground there. On nuclear, he is absolutely right that we should not rush to judgment, but we should, as we have done, ask our experts where there are lessons to learn.

The right hon. Gentleman asked a range of questions about Libya, and let me try to take all of them. On the issue of no-fly zones, he said what support the Arab League had given, but the Secretary-General of the Arab League said very clearly:

“It is for the Security Council to take decisions as it sees fit. What we did in the Arab League is make an official request to impose a no-fly zone on military activities against the Libyan people.”

I think that that is a significant step forward. The right hon. Gentleman asked what work has been done. Obviously, work has been done in the UK to look at options on how that could be done but, crucially, the work is now being done in NATO, which is right. He asked a question about what it would involve. I am afraid that the answer is that that would depend on exactly how large the no-fly zone was, whether it was operating round the clock, which parts of the country it covered and so forth. However, it is perfectly practical and deliverable. Obviously, if it were to happen, if it is judged to have passed the milestones that we have set, it would be best if it were as widely supported as possible. It is something that no one country can do alone.

The right hon. Gentleman asked why some EU countries were more sceptical than others, and why they opposed the proposal. As he knows, 21 of the 27 are members of the NATO, which made it clear that this should be looked at. Many in Europe, as elsewhere, have made it clear that we must make sure that we learn lessons from Iraq. My argument is that no two situations are the same. We can listen to any number of experts who will warn about what happened in different places in different times, but what we are seeing in Libya is different. It is an uprising of a people against a leader, and it is quite different. No one is talking about invasions, boots on the ground and the rest of it. When a resolution should be put forward will depend on the support that can be guaranteed for such a resolution in the UN, but what has happened with the Arab League and the Gulf Co-operation Council is very encouraging.

On the question raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), the former Foreign Secretary, about arming the rebels, I repeat what the Foreign Secretary said this morning. We should not exclude various possibilities, and there is an argument to be made, but there are important legal, practical and other issues that would have to be resolved, including the UN arms embargo. We should also be clear that there is no single answer to speeding up the process of removing Gaddafi. That is why we should urgently be pursuing a broad range of options through the UN.

On the other actions that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned—the International Criminal Court—I will certainly look at the idea of contacting the court directly. It seems most important to me that we make the point publicly over and over again to all those people around Gaddafi, working for Gaddafi, and in his army, that they are being watched by the International Criminal Court. That is a message that we should do everything we can to get across.

DFID has responded very quickly, both bilaterally and multilaterally. We should be proud of the fact that it was Britain which flew so many Egyptians on the Tunisian border back to Egypt and helped many hundreds of Bangladeshis as well.

On the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes about the middle east peace process, that was discussed by the EU Council. We have made strong representations to other EU countries and also to the US that we must get that back on track. As the right hon. Gentleman said, both of us met the Palestinian President when he came to London recently. I was struck by something that one of his advisers said—that if we really want great progress and victory in combating terrorism and Islamic extremism, growth of democracy in the middle east, plus a solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict, would be the two things that could bring that victory together.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that the Gaddafi regime has already internationalised the conflict in Libya by bringing in many hundreds of mercenaries, which is helping to put pressure on the insurgents? Against that background, is it not imperative that the international community should be able to provide military supplies to the insurgents? Of course, we must recognise the legality of the arms embargo, but does the Prime Minister agree also that the terms of the arms embargo resolution prevent arms from being supplied to what is called the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya—in other words, to the Gaddafi regime—and that it is perfectly possible to supply arms or other equipment to those who are fighting that regime, especially as the resolution itself, through the appointment of a sanctions committee, allows that sanctions committee to provide arms sales to other groups in Libya if it thinks that appropriate?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend made a strong and persuasive argument in his newspaper article this morning. I make three points. First, on the issue of mercenaries, what is happening is unacceptable. We should be sending the clearest possible message to those in Mali, Chad and elsewhere who are thinking of volunteering as mercenaries, and we should put into the next UN resolution the strongest possible language about mercenaries. Secondly, the same should apply to policing the arms embargo against the Gaddafi regime, because there are signs that he is seeking additional armaments right now. Thirdly, I hear clearly the argument —it is an ingenious argument that only a lawyer of my right hon. and learned Friend’s brilliance could make—about the specific way the arms embargo was termed towards the country that Gaddafi effectively renamed, but I am not sure it is an opinion that is shared by all other lawyers.