Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Gapes Excerpts
Tuesday 10th January 2017

(7 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Boris Johnson Portrait Boris Johnson
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I make no comment on the electoral efficacy of the hacking of the DNC emails, except to say that it is pretty clear that it did come from the Russians. The point that we have made to the incoming Administration, and indeed on Capitol Hill, is just this: as I said earlier, we do think that the Russian state—the Putin Kremlin—is up to all sorts of very dirty tricks, such as cyber-warfare, but it would be folly for us further to demonise Russia or to push Russia into a corner, so a twin-track strategy of engagement and vigilance is what is required.

Mike Gapes Portrait Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
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The Foreign Secretary referred to the middle east process. Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry failed in their efforts to get a bilateral agreement between Palestinians and Israelis. Is it not now time to go to the international sphere, in the sense of the Arab initiative originally introduced by Saudi Arabia in 2002?

Boris Johnson Portrait Boris Johnson
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The only way forward is for both sides to get to the negotiating table and recognise that a two-state solution is the way forward.