HL Deb 18 September 1972 vol 335 cc716-8
LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the object of the discussions between the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the Greek Government and other Ministers during his recent visit to Athens.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON)

My Lords, it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to maintain constructive relations with the Greek Government as a NATO ally. I took the opportunity to pay a short unofficial visit to Athens at the end of my recent holiday in the Aegean. I paid calls on the Greek Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the then alternate Foreign Minister, and had useful discussions with them on various matters of mutual interest.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, and I am sure that, as indicated in the Press statement, he showed to the Greek Government the British desire for more democracy and for the release of prisoners. May I ask him whether he did not also discuss military arrangements? And does it not make a farce of the principles of the Free World if we enter into military arrangements with a totalitarian State?

LORD CARRINGTON

My Lords, there are many countries in the world whose internal policies we would not endorse but with whom we maintain normal external or defence relations. I should have thought that if the noble Lord viewed the strategic situation in the Eastern Mediterranean he would have some regard to the fact of how important Greece and Turkey are in that area.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, is it not much more than that? Are we not engaged, through NATO, in working for the principles of a Free World with an authoritarian State which makes nonsense of those principles?

LORD CARRINGTON

My Lords, I do not think I have anything to add to what I have just said. It seems to me that if one is going to restrict one's contacts to Governments of whom one approves and with whose internal policies one agrees, one will perhaps be rather limited in the future.

LORD ORR-EWING

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many of us believe that, for geographical reasons, both Norway, on the North flank, and Greece, on the South flank, of NATO play a vital part in the defence of Western Europe, and that, in face of the massive increased expenditure of the Soviet Union on armaments, we welcome the visit that my noble friend has made?

LORD CARRINGTON

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. As I tried to point out to the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, in answer to his first supplementary question. I think that Greece and Turkey have a very significant role to play in the defence of the Western World.

LORD KENNET

My Lords, is it not the case that, while military necessity may create dubious political bedfellows, yet this points up the desirability of confining NATO to a military purpose and, in so far as possible, keeping it out of the study of urban traffic and air pollution which it seems to be getting into?

LORD CARRINGTON

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, NATO is primarily a military alliance.

LORD MAYBRAY-KING

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that NATO, in which we all believe, exists to defend democracy, and that it would be much stronger morally when Greece again becomes democratic?

LORD CARRINGTON

My Lords, I do not think that any of us would deny that. As the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, observed, I think in his first supplementary, I took the opportunity of saying to both the Greek Prime Minister and the Greek Deputy Prime Minister that I hoped very much that democracy would very soon be restored in Greece.

THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE

My Lords, does my noble friend recall that when Greece was our sole fighting ally at one stage of the last war she at that time suffered a dictatorship, and it did not spoil the allegiance to free thinking, free hopes and free aspirations of all the Free World, including ourselves: and that she is a very sound and valued ally?

LORD CARRINGTON

Yes, my Lords. But one of the things about Greece that all of us remember—and this is perhaps what causes so much interest in Greece—is that our associations go back for much longer than that. We all recollect Byron, and perhaps some of us recollect Classical Greece as well.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

My Lords, when one is thinking of other countries—and there is no perfect Government in the world—is it not important to remember that Greece has very low unemployment and a very large gross national increase, I believe, of the order of 10 per cent. a year?

LORD CARRINGTON

My Lords, while I think we should not seek to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, I have no doubt that my noble friend is right in his figures.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the discussions included the sale of arms to Greece from this country, and whether there are any intentions of selling them?

LORD CARRINGTON

My Lords, we did touch on the sale of arms, and Her Majesty's Government have made it plain on previous occasions that in the context of NATO needs we are prepared to sell arms to Greece.

LORD SHACKLETON

May I ask the noble Lord whether he had a very good holiday, first?

LORD CARRINGTON

Yes, my Lords. I did have a very good holiday. At the beginning of my holiday I also spoke to some Ministers in Yugoslavia, and I am rather surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has not drawn attention to that.