Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts
Tuesday 3rd September 2013

(10 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mark Simmonds Portrait Mark Simmonds
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The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise her concerns about the fighting that took place in the eastern part of the DRC. We have been working with the international community, including the United Nations. I have spoken, and offered the United Kingdom’s full support, to Martin Kobler, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative who is in charge of MONUSCO, and to Mary Robinson. I have also spoken to the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to urge restraint, as I have to the Rwandan Foreign Minister. President Museveni of Uganda has called for talks in Kampala on 5 September, and I very much hope that that will be the beginning of the process so that everybody is focused on implementing the peace and security framework that was set out after the problems a few months ago.

Crispin Blunt Portrait Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
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The humanitarian emergency in that part of Africa is grave and long-standing. What would we say to China, as it acquires interests and, gradually, the ability to project military power there, if it invoked international humanitarian law to intervene militarily and there was opposition from other members of the Security Council?