Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if she will publish a response to Early Day Motion 457 on Arrests and detentions in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

We are aware of the detention and conviction of a number of journalists and activists in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) and we are following the situation closely.

I have raised my concerns over restrictions on media freedom in the KRI with the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Masrour Barzani. Our Ambassador in Baghdad and our Consul General in Erbil discuss these issues with their interlocutors in the Kurdistan Regional Government. The Foreign Secretary discussed the stability of Iraq and the KRI with the KRI's President Nechirvan Barzani during his visit to London over 15-17 September.