Speeches by Cooper.

“If you go back 10 years or so, the security focus of the Foreign Office and the Home Office would have been on counter-terrorism, the nature of the organised groups operating in ungoverned spaces and what the strategy should be on that. In more recent years, we have seen growing state threats, whether that be around Ru…”

“One of the things we are seeking to do, including by working with countries like Norway, which also has experience in these areas, is to build up civilian capacity in Sudan. There is an immediate issue with getting the warring sides to pull back from the brink and to agree to a humanitarian truce. If it is to be sustai…”

“I take any allegations like this incredibly seriously. I think allegations were made about three items found in Sudan being sourced from the UK. Since those allegations, I have insisted on a review of 2,000 export licences. In the case of those three items, they were not covered by any current licences over the last fi…”

“The US obviously has substantial ability to put pressure on. The other countries—Saudi, Egypt and UAE—also have extensive influence and engagement. Our role, I think, is to continue to work with all of them and to push to keep pressure on through the UN. The crisis in Sudan is so complicated and at risk of getting wors…”

“I have substantially increased the Foreign Office work on Sudan. I am deeply worried about Sudan. This is already the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century, and I am really worried that there will be further atrocities. We have seen the horrendous scenes in El Fasher and I have met some of the Sudanese communit…”

“As I have made clear, our focus right now is to get the humanitarian release of Jimmy Lai. I hope that would be everybody’s agreed objective. That is why we are seeking to have as many other countries as possible calling for the immediate release of Jimmy Lai; the EU also put out a strong statement yesterday. We seek t…”

“We have been—you were there for the statement yesterday—very strong in our condemnation of this clearly politically motivated prosecution, and we have called for the immediate release of Jimmy Lai. He is 78 and there are immediate humanitarian concerns here. Even simply on a humanitarian basis, we urge the Chinese auth…”

“I hope you will appreciate that the reshuffle has added to the time to do this. I can tell you that those discussions are under way. We would try to do so as swiftly as possible. In terms of the definition, there is not really any agreed international definition of arbitrary detention. Some of the debate reflects diffe…”

“I do want to introduce this appointment. I think it is important and would be very valuable, so we are taking that forward, and also looking more widely at some of the envoys. I think this is important and so we will be making that appointment. More widely—”

“Let me write to you with the precise detail for the 18-month period, so that I give you the right figure. On the specific reforms—including education textbooks, welfare reforms and so on—we are absolutely monitoring the detail. I have spoken directly to President Abbas about those and the commitments the Palestinian Au…”

“Yes, we do get regular briefings. Regarding the issues around truck monitoring, the target was, I think, 250 UN-related trucks a day. That is being hit sometimes, but not consistently. I actually think this is about much more than the number of trucks. We know that there are some commercial trucks as well, but the tota…”

“We currently have 15 people there, predominantly military staff but some civil as well. It does vary, because people go for short periods and there are rotations. As of today, there are 15 people there. The reality is that the CMCC has a transition role, as planning takes place for the Palestinian committee and the Boa…”

“I have raised this exact issue about the registration of charities directly with the Israeli Foreign Minister. We have raised it continually with the Israeli Government and through the CMCC and all those involved in the process, and we will continue to do so. A lot of very good and very experienced charities need to be…”

“It should be at every stage. It should happen now. We are calling for it to happen now, but, in addition, as part of the establishment of the Board of Peace and the Palestinian committee, there is another opportunity to further increase aid and have new arrangements in place to make sure that we can get aid as rapidly …”

“When President Trump first published his 20-point plan, he put forward Tony Blair as part of those discussions. That was his nomination, rather than the UK or other countries being involved at that point. The discussions about the composition of the Board of Peace are still under way, so there is no conclusion to those…”

“The aid going into Gaza has increased since the ceasefire. My view is that it is still a long way short of where we need to get to. That is partly why I went to Jordan to see the warehouses. Just one of the World Food Programme warehouses that I went to had UK aid there. There was enough wheat there to feed 700,000 peo…”

“We have supplied people to the CMCC—both military and civil members—in order to help with that, but it is predominantly doing operational co-ordinating work. The ISF is a very different role, and we would not expect and do not intend for UK troops to be part of the ISF, although we of course always stand ready to provi…”

“Some of these are DBT issues as well. I am very happy to provide you with further written information on that.”

“Clearly we see them as illegal settlements, so it is important that that is recognised.”

“You are right that both the Department for Business and Trade and HMRC have recently updated their list of non-eligible locations so that goods in the specified locations cannot benefit from preferential tariff treatment. They have also introduced a new document code for that. If there are any doubts about goods that h…”