§ 2.50 p.m.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government 348 what conclusions were reached at the conference of NATO Foreign Ministers at Ankara.
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (Lord Carrington)My Lords, I attended the meeting on the 25th and 26th June. Discussion covered a wide range of international developments of concern to the alliance. It was a good meeting. The broad measure of agreement among the allies is reflected in the communique, a copy of which has been deposited in the Library.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, while recognising the wide range of subjects, may I ask the Minister this question: While welcoming the commitment to the pursuit of verifiable measures of disarmament and the avoidance of competitive arms strengthened by the visit of the West German Chancellor to Moscow yesterday, may I ask him whether it is true that an ad hoc group has been set up by the United States, West Germany, Great Britain and Turkey, as reported, to consider arming the Afghan opponents of the Kabul Government? Would not this be very dangerous in widening the war, and would it not be better to support the initiative of the Islamic Conference to bring about a settlement of this problem?
§ Lord CARRINGTONMy Lords, the answer to the first part of the noble Lord's question is, No, and so the second part does not arise.
§ Lord HALEMy Lords, will the noble Lord say whether this matter has any connection with the more or less defunct Baghdad Pact which finally took root in Ankara with a Turkish staff and apparently no other members, all the other members having resigned? If it is virtually pursuing with different personnel the objectives of the Baghdad Pact, is there to be any reference to it?
§ Lord CARRINGTONMy Lords, Turkey is a member of NATO. The NATO Council meets in different capitals each year. This is one of those meetings.
§ Lord SHINWELLMy Lords, will the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary say whether the representations made by Chancellor Schmidt recently on his visit 349 to Moscow represented the views expressed at the meeting in Ankara?
§ Lord CARRINGTONNo, my Lords. Chancellor Schmidt did not go to Moscow representing the views of any other than the German Government.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, would the Minister agree that one of the values of the conference was that the representative of the United States accepted the view that Western Europe could have different attitudes from that of the United States?
§ Lord CARRINGTONMy Lords, what this meeting demonstrated was that the alliance was united.
§ Lord SHINWELLMy Lords, in view of the answer that the Foreign Secretary just gave to my question about Chancellor Schmidt—that is, that he was not representing the views expressed collectively at Ankara, but the views of the German Government—are we to understand now that unilateral arrangements are permissible?
§ Lord CARRINGTONNo, my Lords. Chancellor Schmidt was very anxious not to go to Moscow in the capacity of representative of the Western alliance. He went there as Chancellor of Germany. That was the invitation that he received from Mr. Brezhnev, which is not to say that what he said in any way differed from the views of the Atlantic alliance.