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Afghanistan

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on his diplomacy in handling your Lordships’ questions. I understand exactly what he says about the importance of the internal talks being an Afghan-led process. I know that he is not ruling out the possibility that they could be facilitated and assisted by outsiders. However, I go back to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, who stressed the importance of proper preparation for the Bonn conference. She is absolutely right. I know that the noble Lord agrees with her and I am sure that he sees a role for the UK in trying to ensure that all those in the region with the greatest interest in the future stability of Afghanistan are properly involved in preparations for Bonn, and that includes not just the Chinese, Russians and Indians but the Iranians.