NATO Summit

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me clarify this point. For some time, NATO has wanted a defensive system, partly because of the threat of new ballistic missile states such as Iran. We believe that it is in NATO’s interest to provide that territorial defence for our own countries. That was a great source of tension with Russia, but now it is a source of co-operation. Russia has its own ideas for combining its system with ours, and we have our own ideas on what co-operation should take place. Those sets of ideas are still some way apart, but the positive thing is that discussions are under way on how we can work together.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister told us that the Afghans are not yet capable of securing their own country from terrorists. Does he seriously believe that the Afghans taking a lead role in provinces within four years will mean that Afghanistan will be secure from terrorism?

[The Prime Minister]

I am a little bit more optimistic than the hon. Gentleman. The case today is that Afghanistan ground is forbidden to al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda training camps. Post-2001, there were training camps in Afghanistan, but there is none now because of the action that the allies and the Afghan security forces have taken. The question is this: if the allies withdrew now, would the Afghans be able to sustain that? The answer today is no, but the answer by 2014 should, we believe, be yes. Of course there is a lot more help to be given and a lot more capacity to build, and a lot more troops and police need to be trained up, but we can see some success already, because the number of plots that we face from that part of the world has declined, partly because of the action we have taken.