 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the eighth meeting in 2016 of the Standards Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. I remind everyone to switch mobile phones and other devices to silent as they may interfere with broadcasting. First item on today's agenda is cross-party groups. I would like to welcome Ross Greer, who is here on the proposed cross-party group on Kurdistan. A very warm welcome, Mr Greer, and if you would like to make an opening statement about the group. Thanks very much, convener. It's nice to see the view from this end of the table. I'll be exceptionally brief. The cross-party group on Kurdistan has been set up because this is an area of interest that wasn't previously fulfilled by a cross-party group. We have a Kurdish community in Scotland who is very active both politically and culturally. That gives them a route to engage with Parliament and with MSPs. It also gives us an opportunity to reflect on both the history of the region that is Kurdistan and on the rapidly developing situation there at the moment that Kurdistan is split between the current borders of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The Kurdish population there has been affected significantly by the Arab Spring, the conflict against Daesh, changing political situation in Turkey and so on. That cross-party group would give us an opportunity to reflect on those developments and on Scotland's relationship with our own Kurdish community. Thank you very much. Are there any questions from the committee? I'll take Mr Alexander first. You comment on the Kurdish community being very active, vocal and visual. How are you going to plan to tap into that and what developments do you see coming from that? Yes, there is a Kurdish community centre in Edinburgh. The idea would be that that would be one of the hubs through which we would engage with the community involving the folk who organise through the community centre to engage. The community itself is split between the communities of the four different states, the Turkish Kurdish community, the Syrian Kurdish etc. What we are looking to do is engage with each of those communities in turn as well as bringing them into committee meetings. One of the proposals that we had was that if we were to meet four times a year, half of each of those meetings would be set aside to look at the particular culture of one of the four regions. We are also exploring the opportunities of perhaps having a display or an exhibition of Kurdish culture in the Parliament. I know that the cross-party group on Tibet is going to pursue that as well. I do not think that anyone can be under any doubt about the issues and particular relevance of the Kurdish people. As you point out, the struggle against Daesh and the persecution that Kurds have faced from regimes. My point is that I think that it is welcome to discuss the issues surrounding Kurds, but it is going to be potentially a point of controversy with other countries in the world. How do you propose to navigate that and deal with those sensitivities if I can put it in that diplomatic language? It certainly involves a significant amount of diplomacy. I spent two hours with the Turkish Consul General yesterday discussing developments regarding their Kurdish community and the number of Kurdish MPs who found themselves in jail in recent weeks. This is an area where we have to engage very carefully. It has been raised with us that members of the Kurdish community might not attend meetings if, for example, representatives of some of those four Governments, their consuls, were present. We will very much be taking guidance from the Kurdish community. We want to engage with, for example, the Turkish Consulate, which I did yesterday through our activities outside of this Parliament. However, we will have to be very conscious of that in the way that other cross-party groups such as the CPG on Russia are acutely aware of, who may or may not attend from our Russian community if the Russian Consulate was in attendance. Thank you very much. There is currently no CPG as far as I am aware being planned on asylum and refugee issues. Obviously, there will be many people from the Kurdish community in Scotland who have come through that route, others who may not have done it, who have been here for some time through a different route. I am just wondering to what extent you anticipate this group engaging with those issues, as opposed to engaging with Kurdistan as a country. It is certainly something that we want to look at. We had an informal meeting yesterday to start sketching out ideas for what could make up some of the meetings over the next year. The individual stories of Kurdish refugees who have ended up settling in Scotland are something that we want to explore, as well as the wider issue, particularly in relation to the deal that the European Union has made on refugees with Turkey. That particularly affects Kurdish people because of the relationship that Kurds have with Turkey. It is often portrayed in the media as Turkey being a middle ground for those fleeing conflict in the Middle East, many Kurds fleeing conflict in Turkey. That is certainly a topic that we would like to explore. Thank you very much for your attendance this morning. Normally, I have asked a question about crossover with other CPGs, but I say that you have addressed that in your submission for the cross-party group. We will now break to let you leave and consider the CPG application, and you will be informed of our decision into the course. Thank you very much. I will suspend for a couple of minutes to allow Mr Greer to leave. Item 2 is consideration of the proposed CPG on Kurdistan. I invite any comments from members this morning. I am very happy to support that. I am interested in the fact that my name is mentioned as one of the members of the group. You are unanimous agreement that the recognition of the CPG on Kurdistan is approved by the committee. Thank you very much for that.