Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateValerie Vaz
Main Page: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)Department Debates - View all Valerie Vaz's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(12 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe have good links with Azerbaijan, particularly given its current membership of the UN Security Council—it joined a few months ago. So our diplomatic contact and co-ordination with Azerbaijan has increased. As to the level of representation, we regularly review that but I do not have any new announcement to make about that at the moment.
Earlier, the Foreign Secretary outlined the atrocities in Syria. Will he say in which circumstances he would stop maintaining diplomatic relations with Syria?
There are good arguments for and against maintaining diplomatic relations in these circumstances. We have seen in recent days some of the advantages of maintaining relations, because our ambassador in Damascus has been very active in trying to secure the safe passage out of Syria of the injured journalist whom we were discussing earlier. Having people on the ground and having a channel of communication has a value, even when we so deeply disapprove of the conduct of the Government concerned. Of course, we must keep under review for security reasons the position of our embassy in Damascus and I stress that that is something that I keep under very intense review.