doing all it can within the Community to work for a successful
outcome.
15. The British commitment to the Community is demonstrated every
day in Brussels, in member states and in the conduct of the
Community's external relations. Our contribution to European political cooperation is second to none. We were centrally involved in drawing up the sections of the Single European Act dealing with
cooperation on foreign policy and are actively engaged at every
level in this formulation and presentation of the Twelve's views on
international issues. The way in which the Twelve move together and
support each other commands respect throughout the world. One
striking recent example was the heartening, firm response by all
partners to the death threat issued by Iran against the British
author, Salman Rushdie. The Twelve acted together a powerful signal of our knowledge that a threat to freedom is a threat which
affects us all.
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16. Moving away from the Community for the moment, I should expand
on the UK's role in NATO, the Alliance which has seen, and no doubt
been responsible for, peace for the whole of its existence: it
celebrates its fortieth birthday this year. This Government has
been a vigorous and constructive member of that Alliance throughout
the last decade, a decade which has been vital in giving us greater
hope for East-West relations as we move towards the 21st Century.
Throughout this time, despite the siren voices of the so-called
"Peace Movements", the UK has remained a firm proponent of preserving peace through strength, of looking clearly at the facts of the security equation rather than introducing speculative and
hypothetical factors which lead only to instability and danger.
Alliance's determination to maintain and where necessary to build
adequate de fences has led to the arms control achievements of today,
such as that on INF and the seriousness with which strategic nuclear
forces and conventional forces are being discussed in Geneva and
Vienna. A policy of protecting freedom by using one's common sense is exactly that which we have advocated throughout and which we will
continue to pursue into the next decade.
The