UK seeking to de-escalate tensions in Middle East
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins says the government is trying to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East following Iran's attack on Israel. Report by Etemadil. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 Can you just explain what the UK involvement was in the operation last night?
00:05 Well, what I can confirm is that planes were flown to the region as part of Operation Shader.
00:12 That is an existing anti-Daesh initiative.
00:15 That means that they fly over Iraq and Syria as part of that mission,
00:20 and they were flown over to bolster that existing mission.
00:25 If this attack by Iran escalates further in future, would the UK be willing to shoot down Iranian drones?
00:32 So the latest that I have is that those planes that are already in the region under, as I say, Operation Shader,
00:39 will intercept airborne missiles if they are affecting existing UK missions.
00:46 Are you concerned that the UK might get drawn into a wider war in the Middle East here?
00:51 Everything that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary are doing at the moment is to try to de-escalate this.
00:57 Nobody wants this to escalate further.
00:59 We know the enormous toll that this takes on civilian populations across the region,
01:05 and so both the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have been working with international allies
01:09 to try to de-escalate things because we do not want a miscalculation or escalation to lead to even greater turmoil in the region.
01:18 This was a direct attack on Israel by Iran. Should Israel respond with a direct attack on Iran?
01:25 Well, that will be... There are many, many factors involved in that decision.
01:30 Of course, we as the UK government will not dictate to another international power what they should or shouldn't do.
01:37 What we will do, though, is use every diplomatic lever that we have to support Israel,
01:43 because, again, this was a significant attack on the population of Israel.
01:47 This wasn't just drones. These were missiles being thrown into Israeli territory as well,
01:53 as well as the corridor of those countries over which the drones and the missiles flew.
01:59 But what we want to do is to support Israel with the immediate humanitarian issues arising from this,
02:05 but also to try to find an international solution to this, because nobody wants to see a rising escalation in the Middle East.
02:12 But if Israel were to respond with an attack on Iran, that would be an escalation.
02:16 Is that something that would concern you?
02:18 If you'll forgive me, we've got to take this step by step.
02:20 So today, for example, there is planned to be a G7 leaders' call.
02:26 President Biden has said he wishes such a call to happen. Of course the Prime Minister will be part of that call.
02:31 He has already been... He held a Cobra meeting on Friday.
02:36 He had updates throughout the day yesterday and through the night and continued into this morning.
02:41 So we have to take this step by step. Of course the Prime Minister will update the country and the House in due course,
02:47 but I can't allow myself to speculate, I'm afraid, because of the sensitivities of this.
02:52 To be frank, the Prime Minister, the US President have both for the past few weeks been really clear
02:58 in that they think Iran should not respond to this. Clearly Iran hasn't listened.
03:03 Why should we expect that leaders in Iran and in Israel, frankly, should or will listen to warnings from other Western leaders?
03:10 This is why this was such a significant episode. We want to work with Israel to support Israel with the humanitarian consequences of this.
03:20 We also, of course, want to support Israel in seeing the return of the hostages who were taken in October.
03:27 You know, the very, very beginning of all of this, that horrific attack on Israel in October last year.
03:33 Hostages are still being held. We want those hostages to be freed. We want to get humanitarian aid into affected areas.
03:40 And we want for there to be an immediate humanitarian pause in order to allow that to happen.
03:46 But we're going to have to take this step by step because, as I say, last night was such a significant step forward by Iran
03:53 that we as an international community need to work together to see how we can respond.
03:57 But are you confident that leaders in Israel and Iran are listening to the international community
04:01 and they're willing to actually engage with that de-escalation?
04:04 Well, certainly we know that the Israeli leadership, of course, are working with their allies.
04:14 We have, you know, nobody pretends that this is easy.
04:17 And we also understand that as the only democracy in that region, the pressures on Israel are enormous.
04:25 So we want to stand for a free democracy. We want to stand with Israel.
04:30 And we understand it's right under international law to defend itself given previous events.
04:36 What I'm saying today, in the running heat, if you like, of this military operation, we just need to take this a step at a time.
04:43 And as the international community, we will be meeting, we hope, later today to discuss next steps.
04:48 Just on domestic stories, this week your party will introduce legislation to ban smoking.
04:54 That's not a very conservative thing to do, is it?
04:56 Well, it's to stop children and young people from being able to buy cigarettes in the shop when they turn 18.
05:02 So any adult who is already smoking will still be able to continue to buy their tobacco products.
05:08 But we know that smoking causes one in four cancer deaths.
05:12 It kills 80,000 people a year. And almost every minute of every day, the NHS admits someone to hospital with a smoking-related condition.
05:21 And so what we want to do is to stop children from taking up smoking.
05:26 We know from the statistics that most smokers start before the age of 20.
05:30 And there is nothing freeing about an addiction to nicotine. That's what we're trying to tackle.
05:35 And if we can, we're going to introduce this law to stop young people from being smoking.
05:39 Not only will that have enormous benefits for their health, it will also have huge benefits for anyone around them.
05:45 You know, we know the causes of secondary smoking and so on.
05:50 But also importantly, it's a way in which we can relieve pressure on the NHS.
05:54 As Health Secretary, I am focused absolutely on trying to ensure that we make this NHS faster, simpler and fairer.
06:01 One of the ways that we can do that is to help prevent ill health in the first place.
06:05 And so our smoke-free generation is not just doing the right thing for our children,
06:09 but also doing the right thing for stopping demand on the NHS in the coming years.
06:14 And just finally, Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, is under police investigation at the moment.
06:20 There's reports this morning that one of her former aides says she's not telling the truth in this whole affair.
06:26 Do you think she should resign immediately?
06:28 Well, of course, Angela has never been backward in coming forward in attacking other people when their affairs have been in the news.
06:37 So it's interesting that one rule seems to apply to Angela and another rule applies to everybody else.
06:42 I think it is very odd that Keir Starmer, as leader of the Labour Party, has not bothered to look at the legal advice that she was apparently given,
06:51 ahead of her tax reform being filled in.
06:53 I think it's very odd that the Shadow Chancellor has only this week been talking about how determined she is to tackle tax dodging
07:01 and these questions are hanging around for Angela to answer.
07:05 And I think it's very odd that given what Angela has said in the past about other politicians,
07:11 why she is not holding herself up to those same high standards.
07:15 That's all I get, thank you.
07:16 Thank you.