HC Deb 06 March 1957 vol 566 cc325-7
3. Mr. A. Henderson

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, following the recent official statement on Middle East policy made by President Eisenhower, he will state the extent to which it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to resist Communist aggression in the Middle East.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd

As the House is aware, Her Majesty's Government have welcomed President Eisenhower's proposals. They are fully determined to cooperate with their allies in resisting Communist aggression in the Middle East.

Mr. Henderson

Does not the Foreign Secretary's reply mean that in the view of Her Majesty's Government the commitment under the Tripartite Declaration of 1950 has been extended by the content of the Eisenhower declaration?

Mr. Lloyd

The Tripartite Declaration of 1950 did not deal expressly with the question of Communist aggression. It dealt with the question of the violation of frontiers and armistice lines. Of course, we have an important obligation in this matter under the Bagdad Pact.

Mr. Bevan

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman appreciate that the statement which he has made is an exceedingly serious one? Does he mean that, in the event of President Eisenhower, in the terms of his own policy as suggested, and Congress deciding that a nation has been threatened or has been the victim of an act of aggression by a nation under the control of international Communism, that decision automatically involves us?

Mr. Lloyd

No, I do not think so. I think that it is a matter for us to decide in each case the extent to which we consider ourselves bound. What I have said is that we are determined to co-operate with our allies in resisting Communist aggression, but we, of course, shall decide, as also will our allies, no doubt, and retain the right to decide in what circumstances we are involved.

Mr. Bevan

Did not the right hon. and learned Gentleman say in the first part of his statement that we supported the Eisenhower doctrine on the Middle East? Is it not part of that doctrine also that the United States will decide whether the victim is a victim of aggression or the threat of aggression by a nation under the control of international Communism—which is a most precise judicial statement, of course?

Mr. Lloyd

I do not think that there is anything inconsistent in what I have said. I have said that we welcome President Eisenhower's proposals as giving an indication of the intention of the United States to resist Communist aggression in that part of the world, and that nothing that I have said deprives Her Majesty's Government at the time of the right to decide upon the action to be taken by us.

Mr. Shinwell

May I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in view of the refusal of President Eisenhower and the United States Administration to involve themselves in our quarrels in the Middle East, whether we can have an assurance that we shall not be dragged into theirs?

Mr. Lloyd

I should have thought that resistance to Communist aggression in the Middle East is also a British interest.

Mr. Bevan

Is it not the obligation of the Government, so far as we understand it, to act in co-operation with the United Nations to resist aggression? Have not we now got a definition of aggression which makes it extremely difficult, when we introduce these qualitative terms, to say which kind of aggression it is?

Mr. Lloyd

I think that nothing that I have said has been inconsistent with our obligations under the Charter of the United Nations. If the right hon. Gentleman will put down a specific question about the definition of aggression, that is a matter with which I will try to deal.