HC Deb 29 January 1951 vol 483 cc567-8
55. Mr. Smithers

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what treaties or other arrangements exit to enable joint planning of defence to take place between His Majesty's Government and the Portuguese Government.

Mr. Ernest Davies

Portugal, as a signatory of the North Atlantic Treaty, fully shares in the joint planning for defence being undertaken by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Mr. Smithers

Do these arrangements extend to Portuguese Colonial territories?

Mr. Davies

I should want notice of that question.

Sir H. Williams

Is not Portugal still part of the Iberian peninsula?

Mr. Pickthorn

Can we be told whether the Under-Secretary thinks that the Portuguese Government is democratic?

Mr. Davies

I do not think that the conditions in Spain and Portugal—

Mr. Pickthorn

I did not ask about Spain.

Mr. Davies

—are analogous at the present time. The record of Portugal during the last war, and the fact that we have had an alliance with Portugal for many hundreds of years, make the position very different.

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