Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the Turkish Government’s efforts to extinguish forest fires in (a) the Turkish province of Tunceli and (b) other Turkish regions with high ethnic minority populations; and if he will make an assessment of the effect of those fires on those ethnic minority populations.

I have no reason to question the effectiveness of the Turkish authorities in tackling forest fires, in Tunceli or any other part of Turkey. Under the circumstances I am unable to assess the impact on local communities of the fires.