Mr. Riley asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any further statement regarding the constitutional Crisis in the Lebanon?
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any further statement regarding the constitutional Crisis in the Lebanon?
While we were in Cairo my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I were able to discuss the recent Crisis in the Lebanon with my right hon. Friend the Member for Stockton (Mr. Harold Macmillan) and with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carlisle (Major-General Sir Edward Spears), who is our Minister at Beirut, as well as with the Minister of State in the Middle East.
I was glad that the, hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. H. Nicolson) referred to Lebanon when the Foreign Secretary was in his place, and I hope the Government will take notice of his remarks as I believe there has been a widespread feeling that the Lebanon Crisis was not handled with altogether consummate skill by the Foreign Office.
Twenty years ago the Americans, of their own volition, resolved a dangerous Crisis in Lebanon.
The current Crisis in Lebanon is increasingly disturbing.
Negotiations continue for a peaceful solution of various aspects of the Crisis in Lebanon.
The Government have been watching the continuing Crisis in Lebanon with great concern.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I visited Syria on 11–12 January and held talks with President Asad and Mr. Khaddam about ways of making progress towards negotiated solutions to the Crisis in Lebanon and to the other conflicts in the region.
Mr. Waldegrave: We and our European partners fully support the Arab League's efforts to find a solution to the Crisis in Lebanon.
My right hon. Friend was also able to stress the Government's determination to see a diplomatic solution to the Lebanon Crisis and a speedy return to the peace process.
The United Kingdom is gravely concerned by the escalating Crisis in Lebanon.
One of the reasons why this is so worrying is that the Crisis in Lebanon is likely to make the other problems of the middle east harder to deal with.
It should become actively engaged because we need not only a solution to the Crisis in Lebanon, which is a humanitarian and political disaster, but a middle east solution, whereby we get back to the road map, with the two-state solution that so many of us want.
We are gravely concerned about the Crisis in Lebanon.
I, too, wish to refer to the serious Crisis in Lebanon.
To return to the current Crisis in Lebanon, I have heard reports that the Israelis are using a new type of shell, the shrapnel from which is not detectable on X-ray.
However, given the deepening Crisis in Lebanon - where UN resolutions requiring the disarmament of Hezbollah are going entirely unimplemented - the endless stand-off in Gaza, and the steady separation of Palestinian and Israeli people, which suicide bombings and the response to them have brought about, a new international emphasis on middle east peace is of course desperately needed.
It was humiliating at the time of the Crisis in Lebanon when no consideration at all was given to whether we should form part of the United Nations peacekeeping mission.
His report to this House on his recent visit and the way in which he shared with us his analysis of the continuing political Crisis in Lebanon is, I am sure, something that we all value.
That is one of the reasons why the UK was entrusted with the job, during the Lebanon Crisis, of flying the first international envoys into Beirut.
Take, for example, the words of the Finnish president, who, after last summer's Crisis in Lebanon, stated that action was difficult because there were, "real differences of opinion between Member States".
Since I took up my present appointment, I have witnessed operations at first hand, through visits to HMs Sutherland in the north Arabian Gulf, and to HMs St. Albans, which played a leading role in the evacuation of people during the Crisis in Lebanon, and the aircraft carrier HMs Illustrious.
They are actively involved in efforts to resolve the political Crisis in Lebanon, and we have welcomed their constructive efforts, which have sought to bring the parties in Lebanon together.
We are deeply concerned by the current political Crisis in Lebanon, where there has been no president for five months.
What has been remarkable about the past month is not just the scale and spontaneity of the worldwide protests, which have been far greater than anything that we have seen before - some of us were involved in the issue at the time of the Lebanon Crisis, and the situation has far outstripped even that - but the readiness of people around the world to help the Palestinians.