Turkey

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

We strongly encourage Turkey to continue to work towards the full protection of fundamental rights, especially in the areas of minority rights, freedom of religion and freedom of expression. We will continue to do that, and I fully take on board the hon. Gentleman’s point about the need to protect Christians in Turkey.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

I, too, add my warm congratulations to the Minister on his appointment and express my hope that he will bring an enlightened perspective to some aspects of our foreign policy. At 4.30 today I was due to meet Garo Paylan, a Member of the Turkish Parliament for Istanbul and a leading member of the HDP, the principal social democratic opposition party. Obviously, he has been unable to make that meeting, but he has relayed to me his extreme concern that many members of that party are now being rounded up and detained by the Turkish authorities, despite having nothing whatsoever to do with this attempted coup. May I therefore ask the Minister to make it specifically clear to President Erdogan and the Turkish authorities that this country will not tolerate the repression of democratic opposition parties in that country, whose only misdemeanour is to fulfil their constitutional duty to criticise the Government?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

The hon. Gentleman speaks passionately and forcefully on this matter, and I fully understand what he is saying. This is why our ambassador and all of our embassy team are closely watching exactly what is happening to democratic parties, and we are engaging with them across the spectrum of political involvement to make sure that we know exactly what is going on and can make our voice heard accordingly.