The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate noble Baroness, Lady Cox, on securing this debate. Working for a solution to the crisis in Syria remains a top priority for the Government. We recognise the realities of the situation across the whole of the Middle East and the implications of the displacement of so many millions of people, as well as the generosity of counties such as Lebanon and others which have hosted those forced out of their own country. The conflict has now lasted nearly six years and caused appalling human suffering, as noble Lords have graphically set out today: over 400,000 people have been killed, half of the country’s pre-war population has been displaced and millions of Syrians are in need of urgent humanitarian help.
The military offensive against eastern Aleppo before Christmas was one of the worst episodes of this terrible conflict. For over five months, more than a quarter of a million people were besieged and cut off from food and medical supplies as the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian backers blocked access to humanitarian convoys. I was asked about Iran and the way that it recruits people to fight in Syria. I will certainly follow that up—I had not seen that particular newspaper report, but I will make inquiries. In Aleppo, every hospital in the eastern part of the city was put out of action by air and artillery strikes—it is only the Assad regime and its backers that have access to air and artillery strikes. Hundreds of civilians were killed. As the UN has shown, in October last year, there were 400 casualties in that one month alone.
That is across the range; I am not picking out particular groups, rather I am adding to the descriptions given by noble Lords about the impact of what happened. Ultimately, tens of thousands of people were forced to leave the city. All this was justified by the regime and its backers in the name of fighting terrorism. We reject that explanation, and indeed even Russia’s own figures show that terrorists accounted for only a tiny fraction of Aleppo’s population. The real targets were the moderate opposition forces. Far from combating terrorism, the actions of the regime, Russia and Iran have served only to fuel it and worsen the suffering of the Syrian people.
In reality, the regime and its backers are responsible for the vast majority of deaths and civilian suffering in Syria. I am not going to go into the detail of what happened in the prison highlighted in the Amnesty report, but any form of torture is wrong. Tens of thousands of people disappeared from their families and the streets into Assad’s clutches, and goodness knows what happened to them. The fact is that the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have confirmed that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons. I understand that Daesh may have done so as well, but it is wrong for anyone to use them.
Even after the fall of eastern Aleppo, some 700,000 people remain in besieged areas across the whole of Syria, the vast majority of them trapped by pro-regime forces. The UK’s policy has always been to support a sustainable, Syrian-led political settlement to the conflict while doing everything we can to help and protect civilians in the country. We are not and never have dictated to the Syrian people what they should decide as to the outcome and what should happen to Assad, rather we have expressed our view that he has failed to protect his people. He has military backing from Russia and Iran, and without it he would be nowhere. Moreover, he does not care for his people as a leader should. That is our view and it is what we have always said. Any process to rebuild the country must be Syrian-led. I also take very much to heart the words of my noble friend Lady Nicholson. She said that even after a treaty has been signed, conflict remains afterwards, so it is about rebuilding. I agree with her that conflict remaining is what we should be thinking about today. There can be no military solution to the conflict; you can win a war, but you do not win a peace.
Recent developments have confirmed our assessment that the only way to bring back stability to Syria and thereby address the terror threat which is here and present with us today in the UK, and to allow the millions of refugees to return home, is a political settlement which ends the civil war so that we can then start to rebuild. As the Foreign Secretary has consistently said, it is our view that there can be no sustainable peace in Syria while Assad remains in power. Strange things have been said in the debate about the Foreign Secretary saying that Assad must stay. No, he has not. He has reaffirmed our belief that Assad cannot lead the country but that it is for the people of Syria to decide. That has underlined all our work throughout the peace negotiations. Those negotiations would include, in our view, the right of the 11 million people who have been displaced as a result of conflict to take part in free and fair elections. It may be some way off, but let us hope that we can all help Syria to reach that point.
My noble friend Lady Berridge raised in particular the question of displaced Christians and minorities. We are not in a position to track exactly how many and from which minority or faith have been moved and to where, mostly of course because as people have travelled and their groups have fragmented, no records have been kept either in the refugee camps or indeed where they have now settled in western Europe and beyond. As some noble Lords have reminded me on previous occasions, some people are scared to reveal their ethnicity and their minority status. We should think of that very carefully indeed when we think about rebuilding. I understand why my noble friend raises these points. It is right for noble Lords to ask about Syria surviving as an entire country. If Syria is to survive as an entire country, not with a little bit picked off by Assad because he likes that bit and does not like the rest but as a country in which Syrians are able to determine their own future, it needs to continue to adhere to its history of respecting different ethnicities and different religions. Over the last few months, it has been my privilege to meet senior faith leaders who represent a wide range of orthodox Christian faiths. They are very brave people. Having come here to give their views, they go back to Syria to tend to their flocks.
At the UN Security Council, we have consistently advocated for action to bring about an immediate ceasefire and enable humanitarian access for all those in need in Syria. At the Human Rights Council, the UK has led efforts to monitor human rights violations and abuses committed in Syria and to call for accountability for those responsible. My Whip is very kindly saying that I have only two minutes left. I think that I have a little more, but not much more. As she is my mentor, I normally obey her immediately.
In October we proposed, and secured the adoption of, a Human Rights Council resolution which mandated the UN commission of inquiry to investigate and report on violations and abuses during the siege and offensive against eastern Aleppo. We continue to support the important work of the UN commission of inquiry.
Humanitarian support was raised by many noble Lords. I say merely that it is vital that we all support that. I was very interested in what my noble friend Lady Morris said about the Business Task Force. That is a very practical way forward.
As regards recent progress, it was right for noble Lords to concentrate their minds on Astana and the progress that has been made there with the ceasefire. The ceasefire is not a political solution. It is valuable in itself. It would have been so much more valuable if, as a result, Assad had allowed humanitarian access, but still people are being starved. Those taking part in the Astana process recognise that the real progress is to be made by the Geneva talks. I welcome their recognition of that. The UN special envoy, Staffan de Mistura, has announced that he plans to reconvene talks between the Syrian parties in Geneva this month. We fully support those efforts.
I was also asked whether we should have an embassy in Damascus. I have answered that question in some detail on the Floor of the House. The simple answer is that we have no reason to trust Assad. To establish such an embassy would be a sign that we felt that he was the way forward. Our view is that he is not and that we must allow the Syrian people to make that decision. What decision the Syrians reach, we should then follow. It is as wrong to dictate to the Syrian people that they must keep Assad as it would be to dictate to them that they should get rid of him. We should listen to the people. We are a democracy. Let them be one.