UK air transport assistance to France for Central African Republic

France has taken the decision to increase its force levels in the Central African Republic to deal with the awful outbreak of killing between the communities there. Personally I have had a lot of experience over the years of dealing with this kind of chaos and violence, I think of the Balkans for example.

Written version (continued)

It’s always difficult for a country to take the decision to intervene, to put a stop from the humanitarian point of view and to try to reestablish some sort of stability.

The UK is delighted to support France in the action that it’s taking. We are still deeply involved in Afghanistan and so we don’t have troops available, but we have already sent one of our big transport aircraft, the C17, from the Royal Air Force to Bangui to help the initial French surge of forces and equipment into the Central African Republic and we will be doing more.

We’ve worked with the French as well on the resolution that gives them the authority to intervene through the Security Council and we’ll be working with them now on how they pass on the responsibility to a multilateral force in the future.

You have to start planning immediately when you begin an intervention like this for the following phase – the stabilization phase, for handing responsibility back to regional actors and that will be very important in this case and we shall we working closely with France on that.