Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. She is absolutely right: Yemen is increasingly important in concerns about counter-terrorism. The Friends of Yemen initiative has been rekindled since the current Government came to office, and there is an important meeting in New York on 24 September. This is a group of nations that has come together in order to support Yemen, recognising that it faces economic and security challenges. The United Kingdom is already doing effective work bilaterally, but we are also working increasingly with other nations to assist on economic reform and political reform and dialogue, and to give continuing support on counter-terrorist activity to ensure that al-Qaeda does not get a grip in that crucial region.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

Is the Foreign Secretary aware that there are still very strong concerns about human rights abuses in Darfur and more widely in Sudan? Would he care to brief the House on the Government’s view of the current situation and what initiatives they might have taken?

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We have long-standing concerns about Darfur across the House. One of the things we are doing is to try to ensure that we retain a strong peacekeeping force in Darfur; the withdrawal of any of that threatens to make these problems even worse. We support, of course, the indictment that the International Court of Justice has put forward on the President of Sudan. We are doing a lot of work on the south of Sudan and the prospects for a referendum there, including all the arrangements for that and the controversy and political disputes that it may bring. Our ambassador in Khartoum is well engaged in all these matters, and we will continue to be very vigilant about them.