Prime Minister's question asked in the House of Commons, by Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Conservative). It was answered on Wednesday, 11 January 2006 on behalf of the Prime Minister.

Engagements

Question: Clearly, if the matter does go to the United Nations Security Council—we hope that it will—one of the issues will be sanctions. The Prime Minister well knows that sanctions in the past have not always been effective in getting countries to comply with their international obligations. What steps will he take to ensure that they are effective in this case?

Answer: I think that the first thing to do is to secure agreement for a reference to the Security Council, if that is, indeed, what the allies jointly decide, as I think seems likely. At that point, we have to decide what measures we are going to take. We obviously do not rule out any measures. It is important that Iran recognises how seriously the international community treats it. However, it is better to go through the process of first having the meetings and discussions, and reaching agreement; we can then set out the measures that we want to take.

Secondary information