Aleppo

Tom Brake Excerpts
Monday 28th November 2016

(7 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Tobias Ellwood Portrait Mr Ellwood
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I concur with my right hon. and learned Friend. It is important that we are able to move forward on this and be aware of the consequences of our doing nothing. I sit here with the briefings I receive and the responsibility I have as Minister for the middle east, and I am very conscious of the comments, the concerns and the anger expressed here today. We have to work with what is the art of the possible and what is the art of the legal as well, but the Foreign Office is looking at various options, and I hope we will be able to advance this, better understand it ourselves, and—dare I say it?—better understand and better educate the British public, so we take them with us, which was a concern back in 2013 as well. We were all haunted by what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq: was this another situation we were going to get sucked into? Things are different now, as my right hon. and learned Friend says, so, absolutely, we should move forward on that note.

Tom Brake Portrait Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
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Since the critical final phase of the assault on Aleppo started, with which foreign Governments has the Minister discussed the feasibility of airdrops?