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Foreign Affairs and Defence

The hon. Gentleman raises an important question. It is a 2,600 km border and, as I said last week, 90,000 Pakistani border police are there. We have seen no change to their deployment in the last eight to 10 days of the Pakistani emergency, but we are obviously watching the situation very carefully. The operations in Afghanistan, and also in Kosovo, are test cases for the new NATO that we want to see. This April, allies will meet in Bucharest to agree means of further transforming NATO to meet the needs of the 21st century, to improve the way it works with other organisations, to integrate civilian and development efforts with military activity and to build more flexible, deployable and sustainable forces. The Government will be active in building democracy in the middle east, active in countering terrorism in Afghanistan and active in countering nuclear proliferation, not least in the debates this and next month on Iran. Last June, along with our E3 plus 3 partners, we gave Iran a clear choice: join the international community in limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and reap the economic and technological benefits, including for civilian nuclear power; or promote proliferation and suffer isolation. Dr. el-Baradei and Dr. Solana will report on Iran's progress later this month. Unless those reports are positive, the E3 plus 3 Ministers have agreed to seek a vote on a third UN Security Council sanctions resolution. That strategy is agreed across the international community. Meanwhile the EU is considering further sanctions. This is the right strategy to ensure that Iran can take its place as a respected member of the international community while also defending the integrity of the non-proliferation treaty.