Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will place in the Library copies of letters to Kurdistan Regional President Barzani which were endorsed by UK representatives in August and September 2017 on the alternatives to the Kurdistani independence referendum; and if he will make a statement.

I am unable to place their confidential diplomatic correspondence in the House of Commons Library. The UK’s role in negotiations ahead of the Referendum was covered during my evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee on 9 January. Our Ambassador to Iraq, together with the US Ambassador and UN Special Representative, made strenuous efforts in the weeks before the Referendum on 25 September to persuade the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to postpone the Referendum in return for talks on all areas of dispute between the KRG and the Government of Iraq, supported by the international community and with no pre-conditions.