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North Africa and the Middle East

There is nothing holding them back. Yesterday, the US proposed a strengthening of the resolution, which the UK, France and Lebanon put forward together at the Security Council, so the US position came out very clearly there. I assure the hon. Gentleman that, as I said earlier, there is massive, sometimes hourly contact between the United States and the United Kingdom—at the Security Council, with the Secretary of State, with the National Security Adviser, with the State Department, with the Pentagon and between 10 Downing street and the White House. That contact is going on all the time, so trying to make out that we are not in touch with the US Government, when we should all be working together on these huge issues, has something ridiculous about it.