Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will deal first with Syria, raised by Senators Mullen and Walsh. Some 1.6 million people have had to flee the country and are living in refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. That is equivalent to the population of Northern Ireland. When I was in Turkey in April, I visited Gaziantep refugee camp. It was very well managed. As refugee camps go it provided secure accommodation, but it is not where any of us would want to live. One could feel the tension of people who had been displaced from their homes, some of them in very traumatic circumstances. The UN has appealed for €5.2 billion, its estimate of the cost of supporting the humanitarian effort just to the end of the year. This is a major burden on the countries, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The Minister of State, Deputy Costello visited refugee camps in Jordan. There must be a mobilisation of international effort to provide support and finance. One of the issues that must be considered is where this is going in the long term and the amount that will be required to address this humanitarian crisis. The loss of human life and the suffering of the Syrian people must end. Neighbouring countries such as Iran, Turkey and Israel clearly have a role to play in this.

Iran is not on the agenda for Monday's meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council. There have been a number of discussions on Iran, particularly on the E3+3 process. I hope that process will improve and progress.

With regard to Egypt, there is no indication yet about the release of political prisoners and the re-opening of television stations but the EU is continuing to press hard on that. The EU High Representative Cathy Ashton is in Cairo today and I expect we will hear her report on that visit on Monday.

I will come back to the Senator on the Kampala declaration. The Minister of State, Deputy Costello, attended the signature ceremony for the arms trade treaty in New York. This country has a long record, going back to Frank Aiken in particular, of promoting disarmament and we are very active in the development of the arms trade treaty. Therefore, we were anxious to be among the first signatories to it. We intend to ratify it later in the year.