Letter to the Chair from the Minister
of State at the Department of Trade and Indusry
When I gave evidence to the Committee on 13
March, I promised to let you have a note on various points.
Firstly whether Turkey as a NATO Member has
any obligation to its NATO partners in relation to its exports.
As this is a matter which falls within the responsibilities of
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Kim Howells will respond
separately on this point.
Secondly, I promised a note on "trigger
devices" for explosions, and where they appear in the export
control lists. I can confirm that such devices are specifically
controlled, in a number of different places in both the Military
Lists (ML) and EU Dual-Use List. The UK also has a national control
covering such devices. Full extracts of these controls are provided
for the Committee at Appendix A [not printed].
Finally, you asked for a note on the "Military
End Use Control" in the context of the exports of the civilian
Land Rover kits to the Otokar company in Turkey. The Otokar vehicles
were then delivered to Uzbekistan. The relevant control is set
out in article 4.2 of the EC Dual Use Regulation, to be read in
conjunction with article 4.4 (attached at Appendix B) [not printed].
These controls in summary allow us to impose export licence requirements
on goods which are not normally licensable, where it is known
they are to be used for military purposes in an embargoed destination.
Our view, having checked with the European Commission, is that
this control can be applied in circumstances where the goods are
passing via a third country and are further developed there before
reaching the embargoed destination; provided their ultimate destination
and end user are known at the time of their export from the UK.
The EC Commission has indicated it shares this view. Thus, in
future these provisions could be used to control exports of non-military
Land Rover parts (for example) to Turkey if it is known that those
parts will be incorporated into military vehicles and delivered
to an embargoed destination for a military end-use. In the case
of Uzbekistan vehicles, the controls would not have applied because
at the time Uzbekistan was not subject to an embargo and also
because, as far as we know, it was not envisaged at the time of
export from the UK that the Otokar goods would be transferred
to Uzbekistan.
I am grateful to the Committee for providing
us after the hearing with evidence from Oxfam about the nature
of the commercial relationship between Land Rover and Otokar.
I have asked Land Rover for their comments on this. To the extent
that there may be a working relationship between the two entities,
this is only relevant to current export controls insofar as Land
Rover could thereby be deemed to participate in "an act calculated
to promote" supply or delivery of military goods from a third
country to an embargoed destination (see the Export Control Act
2002 Trade in Goods (Control) Order 2003). However, may I remind
you that I said I would welcome the advice of the Committee on
the issue of where British export control jurisdiction should
begin and end, in cases where the export from the UK is not military
in nature and not normally controlled.
May 2006
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