Syria

Baroness Warsi Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made earlier today in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, on Syria. The Statement is as follows.

“Mr Speaker, with permission I will make a Statement on the conflict in Syria, which continues to worsen.

The Syrian regime’s military offensive against opposition-held areas around Damascus, Homs, Idlib, Hama and Aleppo is intensifying, with complete disregard for civilian life. The death toll has doubled in the first five months of this year, and now stands at an estimated 80,000 people. There have been well verified reports of massacres around Damascus by regime security forces, and communities killed in cold blood in villages around Baniyas. Online footage has shown bodies heaped in the streets, and children butchered in their homes. Ten thousand people are believed to have fled the area in panic created by these brutal killings. And last week there were unconfirmed reports of further attacks using chemical weapons.

Over 4 million Syrians are internally displaced and a total of 6.8 million are in desperate need, including 3 million children. It is horrifying to imagine what life must be like for these children, witnessing violence and death on a daily basis, and enduring trauma, malnutrition and disease. This suffering has devastating consequences. It is undoubtedly contributing to radicalisation in Syria. Syrian people are facing a regime that is using warplanes, helicopter gunships, heavy artillery, tanks, cluster munitions and even ballistic missiles against them, often without them having the means to defend themselves and their communities. The conflict is therefore creating opportunities for extremist groups. Syria is now the number one destination for jihadists anywhere in the world today, including approximately 70 to 100 individuals connected with the United Kingdom.

It is also endangering regional peace and security, with over 50 people killed in a bombing in Turkey last week, the kidnapping of UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights, cross-border shelling and clashes on the Lebanese-Syrian border. Half a million Syrians have become refugees in the last 10 weeks alone, bringing the total number of refugees to 1.5 million, 75% of whom are women and children. The UN assesses that, by the end of this year, on these trends, more than 3.5 million, or 15%, of Syria’s total population will have become refugees. And the Foreign Minister of Jordan has warned that Syrian refugees are likely to make up 40% of his country’s population by the middle of next year, with similar numbers predicted for Lebanon.

One of two scenarios lies ahead for Syria: on the one hand, an ever more savage conflict and military stalemate, producing an even bigger humanitarian disaster, greater radicalisation and deeper sectarian divisions, further massacres, and even the collapse of the Syrian state and disintegration of its territory; or, on the other hand, what we must strive for—a negotiated end to the conflict which ends the bloodshed and leads to a new transitional Government, enabling refugees to return to their homes and extremism to be contained.

All our efforts as the United Kingdom are devoted to bringing about such a political settlement, and to saving lives. We have provided over £12 million in non-lethal assistance so far, including to the Syrian National Coalition. This includes vehicles with ballistic protection, body armour, trucks and forklifts, solar power generators, water purification kits, equipment to search for survivors in the aftermath of regime shelling, computers, satellite phones, and office equipment to help people in opposition-held areas.

We have provided human rights training and support to members of Syrian civil society. We have supported human rights investigation teams to collect documentary, photographic and interview evidence of abuses, and trained medical staff to gather forensic evidence of torture and sexual violence. This material is being made available to the UN commission of inquiry and other international investigative bodies so that those involved in human rights violations can be held to account. We therefore welcome the resolution sponsored by Qatar, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 15 May by 107 votes to 12, urging accountability for human rights violations and progress on a political transition as well as humanitarian assistance to Syria.

The Prime Minister announced last week that we would double our non-lethal assistance this year to £20 million. This will be used to help provide services to the Syrian people, deliver assistance to them on the ground, forge links between different communities and opposition groups, and support better communications. Our humanitarian funding to date totals £171.1 million, including £30 million announced by the Prime Minister last week in support for people in need in opposition-held and contested areas of Syria. Much of our funding is going to support refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. We have already provided food for over 150,000 people, clean drinking water for over 900,000 people and over 280,000 medical consultations for the sick and injured. The Government have worked hard to urge other countries to meet their commitments to the UN humanitarian appeal for $1.5 billion. This is now 71% funded, and we will continue to urge other countries to do more.

We are increasing the support we are providing to Syria’s neighbours, including providing equipment to the Jordanian armed forces to help them deal with the immediate needs of the Syrian refugees at the border and to transport them safely to international humanitarian organisations. We have provided funding to the Lebanese armed forces for four border observation towers, to help reduce cross-border violence in key areas and to protect and reassure local communities. And we are also working with the Syrian National Coalition and key international supporters to develop plans for transition and Syria’s post-conflict needs, building on the conference we held at Wilton Park in January.

The international focus must, above all, be on ending the crisis. To that end, we are stepping up our efforts to support the opposition and increase pressure on the regime, in order to create the conditions for a political transition.

On 20 April I attended the meeting of the core group of the Friends of the Syrian People in Istanbul, where a new ‘compact’ was agreed with the Syrian National Coalition. The coalition issued a declaration committing itself to a political solution and transition, promising to guarantee the rights of all Syria’s communities and rejecting terrorism and extremist ideology. It pledged to preserve the Syrian state, uphold international law, guarantee the safety and security of chemical weapons in Syria and work to keep weapons out of the hands of extremist groups; commitments which I am sure the whole House will welcome. In return, the core group nations agreed to expand support to the coalition and its military council, as the United Kingdom has already done. We are working as I speak to broaden and unify further the Syrian opposition.

On 8 May in Moscow, Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov agreed the basis for a new international conference bringing together representatives of the regime and the opposition. The Prime Minister visited Russia on 10 May for talks with President Putin to cement understanding about the purpose of that conference. He held further talks with President Obama in Washington on 13 May and spoke again to President Putin last Friday. In our view, the conference, which should be held as soon as possible, should be focused on agreeing a transitional governing body, with full executive powers and formed by mutual consent, building on the agreement we reached at Geneva last year.

We are urging the regime and the opposition to attend the conference and to take full advantage of the opportunity to negotiate. In the end, there will have to be a political and diplomatically supported solution, if there is to be any solution at all. There is no purely military victory available to either side without even greater loss of life, the growth of international terrorism and grave threats to neighbouring countries.

The Prime Minister and I have also spoken to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon about the conference, and we continue to support Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi in his role. I am in constant contact with Secretary Kerry about the preparations. Tomorrow I will travel to Jordan to meet him and other Foreign Ministers of the core group on Wednesday, and on Monday I will go to Brussels for the EU Foreign Affairs Council. The EU should give strong support to this diplomatic process, including by agreeing further amendments to the arms embargo, without taking any decisions at present to send arms to the Syrian opposition.

The case for further amendments to the arms embargo on Syria is compelling, in order to increase the pressure on the regime and to give us the flexibility to respond to continued radicalisation and conflict. We have to be open to every way of strengthening moderates and saving lives, rather than the current trajectory of extremism and murder. We have not sent arms to any side during the conflicts of the Arab spring. No decision has been made to go down this route and if we were to pursue this, it would be under the following conditions: in co-ordination with other nations, in carefully controlled circumstances, and in accordance with our obligations under national and international law.

The United Kingdom and France are both strongly of the view that changes to the embargo are not separate from the diplomatic track, but essential to it. We must make it clear that if the regime does not negotiate seriously at the Geneva conference, no option is off the table. There remains a serious risk that the Assad regime will not negotiate seriously. This is the lesson of the last two years, in which the regime has shown that it is prepared to countenance any level of loss of life in Syria for as long as it hopes it can win militarily. We also have to persuade the opposition to come to the table; recognising how difficult it is for them to enter into negotiations with a regime engaged in butchering thousands of people.

There is a growing body of limited but persuasive information showing that the regime used—and continues to use—chemical weapons. We have physiological samples from inside Syria which have shown the use of sarin, although it does not indicate the scale of that use. Our assessment is that chemical weapons use in Syria is very likely to have been by the regime. We have no evidence to date of opposition use. We welcome the UN investigation, which in our view must cover all credible allegations and have access to all relevant sites inside Syria. We continue to assist the investigation team and to work with our allies to get more and better information about these allegations.

The UK holds the presidency of the Security Council next month, and we remain in favour of the Security Council putting its full weight behind a transition plan if it can be agreed. All our efforts are directed at ensuring that the coming conference in Geneva has the greatest possible chance of success. We are entering in the coming weeks a period of the most intense diplomacy yet, to bring together permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, to attempt to create real negotiations and to open up the possibility of a political solution. The Prime Minister is fully committed to these efforts and the central role of the Foreign Office over the coming weeks will be to support this process. At the same time our work to save lives, to help to stabilise neighbouring countries and to support the national coalition inside Syria will continue to be stepped up.

With every week that passes we are coming closer to the collapse of Syria and a regional catastrophe, with the lives of tens of thousands more Syrians at stake. We are determined to make every effort to end the carnage, to minimise the risks to the region and to protect the security of the United Kingdom”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord for being so supportive. The Opposition have been incredibly supportive of the various initiatives that we have brought before this House and the other place, and in terms of the many briefings that have been given to individual Ministers. I will try to address some of the specific issues that he raised.

None of the options is without risk. This is an extremely difficult and protracted dispute. The noble Lord referred to the various factions, whether they are theological, within tribes or relate to concerns about minority rule over a long time. We recognise and acknowledge this difficulty. This dispute has gone on for as long as it has precisely because there are no easy answers.

However, I assure the noble Lord that the arming of rebels, which has been discussed here and in the other place, is not something upon which a decision has been made. The Statement made it clear that the Foreign Secretary and I feel that the amendment to the arms embargo, which is what we are seeking at this stage, allows us the flexibility to continue to put pressure on the regime and say that the situation where those who have the weapons are either the Assad regime or the extremists being funded from elsewhere cannot be allowed to continue.

The noble Lord is right: Syria is awash with weapons. I do not think there is an answer as to how much weaponry is required before a political solution can be reached. As an international community, we have two responsibilities: first, to ensure that people are given the opportunity to defend themselves where a political solution is not immediately obvious; and secondly, to allow the pressure to build to say to the regime that this situation cannot continue and that Assad cannot continue to butcher his own people.

We are absolutely of the view that all communities should be included in the international peace conference. In fact, part of the compact that was agreed with the national coalition earlier this year was about it extending its base and outreach to other communities and ensuring that it was as representative as possible of the Syrian people.

Post-conflict planning is already taking place. The Wilton Park conference in January this year was part of that. We have all learnt the lessons of what happened in Iraq, and we are of the view that we must not dismantle everything that is there. Clearly, that did not work in Iraq, and it is important that we keep what is there and what is workable.

With regard to humanitarian funding, it is important for us to step up to the mark and make the pledges, and I am grateful for the positive comments from the noble Lord. It is also important that we continue to lobby the countries that unfortunately have sometimes chosen to fund and support bilaterally when we are making the case that it should be done through the UN system. The good news is that many more pledges have been delivered. We are at more than 70%, but we use whatever opportunity we have to continue to push for these countries to ensure that the pledges that were made are now put on the table.

I assure the noble Lord that I will use whatever opportunity presents itself to keep the House up to date before any decision is made. There is another Question on Syria listed for just after the Recess, and I know that certain questions were raised when foreign affairs were debated in the Queen’s Speech debate last week. I also thank noble Lords for being so gracious when I had to step out of that debate at the very last moment.

The noble Lord will be aware that every member state has to vote to renew the arms embargo. If a single member state were to say no, that embargo would fall. At this stage, we are negotiating for an amendment to provide us with some flexibility, and as soon as I have further information I will, of course, come back to the House with an update.

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, I will address the first of the questions put by the noble Lord, Lord Wood, and I will be as brief as possible.

Has the Minister read a very pertinent article in the latest issue of the Spectator, by my former colleague, Sir Andrew Green? He is probably better known to your Lordships as head of Migration Watch, but in this case he is speaking as a former ambassador to Syria, like me. Will the Minister please draw that article urgently to the attention of her right honourable friends before they take any decision? I note that the Statement says that no decision has yet been taken to supply arms to the rebels. The article’s headline is:

“Arm Syria’s rebels? That would be pouring petrol on a fire”,

and I beg the Government not to do that.

[Baroness Warsi]

I have not read that article, but I will make sure that I do and that it is brought to the attention of my colleagues. It is important that a wide range of views is fed into the debate when these decisions are made. I absolutely accept the noble Lord’s concerns about pouring petrol on a fire, but I think that he will agree with me that doing nothing is not an option.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for setting out the position with such acumen and accuracy. There are two points that she did not mention. First, China has growing influence and concern in this region. Indeed, it relies on the area for more and more of its fuel. What discussions, if any, have there been with the Chinese authorities about them playing a more constructive role, in addition to the discussions with Russia?

Secondly, can the Minister clarify the position of Jabhat al-Nusra? As I understand it, Hezbollah is working with Assad and the Iranians and is fighting against Jabhat al-Nusra. Jabhat al-Nusra has declared that it is in alliance with al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah are both dedicated to attacking Israel and, indeed, the West. This is an extraordinary melange. Will the Minister describe how we are going to ensure, now that Jabhat al-Nusra dominates areas of Syria and the opposition, that we are not going to find ourselves helping people who are our direct enemies and a direct threat to further peace in the Middle East?

[Baroness Warsi]

I will have to write to my noble friend in relation to his first question about negotiations and direct discussions with China. I am not familiar with the extent of those conversations, although I know that some have taken place.

My noble friend raises a really important point about the complications of the country that we are dealing with and the overlaps and different loyalties of groups at any one time. Extremism deeply concerns us in relation to what is happening in the region and its impact upon the United Kingdom. We have credible evidence that up to 100 young British people, or people connected to the United Kingdom, are out there fighting. It is attractive for people around to the world to go there and fight. We are concerned about the implications of that for the region and for when these people start to come home. That is why when we had the discussions with the national coalition one of the first things that we discussed was extremism. We have a commitment from the national coalition that it will do all it can to ensure that terrorism and extremism do not manifest themselves and grow and that weapons or any support given to the national coalition do not get into the hands of extremists.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, my question relates to the chemical arsenal held within Syria. As a military man, I find it very strange that the Syrian Government should use chemical weapons in a piecemeal way. Therefore, attribution is crucial in assessing who is using them. As a military man, although I think that the use of them is reprehensible and that it is a pretty odious regime, if you wanted to use them, you would use them on a major scale to try to get a military advantage.

The Minister is absolutely right that no one can win this militarily. That raises the issue of who is actually responsible for the release of a weapon of mass destruction in Syria. I am sure that this is a RFI—request for information—among our security services, but we need to be very clear about that so we can hold whoever it is responsible. If this is being allowed to be done down at very low unit level, that is extremely dangerous. There is quite a lot to be unpicked in this before we move forward.

[Baroness Warsi]

We have limited but persuasive information that a chemical weapon has been used. The evidence is that it has been used at a low level in a small way. There is credible evidence of sarin being used but the extent of the use is not clear. The noble Lord raises an important point in relation to why the regime would use it in this particular way.

It is important that we act on this matter in conjunction with the international community. We have sent the evidence to the United Nations. It is important that the United Nations takes a view on the evidence that we and other international partners are submitting. The House will agree that if there is anything we have learnt over the past decade and more it is that before we put into the public domain evidence of chemical or biological weapons or weapons of mass destruction, it is crucial we are clear about when they were used, how they were used and by whom they were used.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister and the Foreign Office on their sure-footed approach thus far, but they should heed the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Wright, about putting fuel on the flames. I have three quick questions. What is our policy on the 70 or 100 jihadists resident in the UK when they seek to return home? We know there are many laggards in terms of honouring the pledges made at Kuwait; given that, what is the Government’s position? Do we name and shame or is there a way to encourage those laggards to honour their commitments? Given the poor and tardy response so far, what confidence do we have that any commitments made for post conflict reconstruction are met? Finally, on the international conference, President Assad has already said he will attend. Is it assumed that the opposition will also attend? We understand that Iran has largely subcontracted the air operations there to the Revolutionary Guards. Will Iran be invited to the conference? We know the strong opposition of France to that. What does Russia say about the role of President Assad in the interim period before the next presidential election, and how do we, our EU partners and the US respond to the position of Russia in respect of President Assad?

[Baroness Warsi]

First, in relation to the 70 to 100 jihadis, we have been working, both domestically and through the advice given by the Foreign Office, to discourage people travelling to Syria. Not only are there risks to them as individuals, but there is concern when these people return. It is not entirely clear who these people are fighting for when they are there. There will be interest in those people when they return, and noble Lords can rest assured that if they have intentions against the United Kingdom, they will be dealt with appropriately. We have a number of programmes, as noble Lords are aware, which deal with radicalisation and extremism within communities.

In terms of the international community, those countries that took part in the first Geneva discussions a year ago will be the countries that will take part in the second conference. It is not intended at this stage to invite further countries; Iran was not one of the countries involved last time, and it is not anticipated it will take part in the negotiations this time. We have no indications to suggest otherwise. The noble Lord may be aware of quite positive comments from the Russians; they do not see that Assad remaining in Syria has to be a precondition and do not appear wedded to a leader. We may have different views on how we handle the situation but, like us, the Russians want an end to the conflict. They see Syria fragmenting, and they want that to stop and the people of Syria to determine who governs them. Like us, they are concerned about the growth of extremism. There are lots on which we agree; there may have been differences on how we get there, but the recent negotiations and the Russians’ commitment to these further peace talks is a step in the right direction.

[Lord Kilclooney]

My Lords, one of the most alarming developments in Syria in recent months has been the ever-increasing influence of radicalised Muslims in the opposition. It is also reported that Qatar and Saudi Arabia are already supplying arms to the opposition. Have Her Majesty’s Government yet made any representations to Qatar and Saudi Arabia to ensure that they do not supply arms to radicalised Islamic groups in Syria?

[Baroness Warsi]

Qatar and Saudi Arabia have both been part of many of the negotiations, including the Friends of Syria discussions which took place earlier this year. Radicalisation, extremism and the commitment of the Syrian national coalition were a big part of those discussions. The countries which form the Friends of Syria stand by those requirements not to support and foster extremism and radicalisation. There is a huge discussion going on at the moment about what inspires radicalisation and extremism. From a domestic perspective, the ideological basis for radicalisation can take two completely different forms. On the one hand, western intervention in Muslim countries can be seen as encouraging extremists to go out and fight, but there is also growing radicalisation and extremism on the back of what is seen as western inaction while many Muslims are being slaughtered in Syria. There is an argument being put which is more akin to Bosnia rather than to Iraq, and it is important that we bear in mind what different drivers of radicalisation and what drives people to extremism.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, the Statement reports 1.5 million refugees now, with a current response to the UN humanitarian appeal of 71% of the $1.5 billion for which it is appealing. The Statement goes on to report the further UN assessment that on current trends there will be more than 3.5 million refugees by the end of this year. Have we yet begun to calculate what the financial humanitarian need will be next year?

[Baroness Warsi]

This is the biggest humanitarian appeal ever. Half the country’s population has been displaced, and we are constantly playing catch-up. The UN relief effort is, despite the 71%, still critically underfunded; it is constantly kept at the table, and we continue to assess it. The longer this goes on, the larger the humanitarian need. Without being able to give specifics about what that humanitarian need will be, we should be even more encouraged to bring this matter to a political settlement so that refugees and displaced people can return to their homes.

[Lord Soley]

Can I take the Minister back to her penultimate answer about the religious aspect? I agree with her about Bosnia; the failure to intervene radicalised and organised people. What I struggle with, and I am certain the Government do too, is the religious divide and how it is moving. The Sunni-Shia divide is getting wider and was never as it is now. Driven, as it must be to some extent, by divisions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, I wonder what thought has been given to the Sunni-Shia divide. If that becomes, as it may well do, a much wider issue playing out on the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere, we have got a much wider and more complex problem. The Minister has painted a picture which is already complex, but underlying it is a religious divide issue which is feeding some of the battles.

[Baroness Warsi]

This is something with which the Foreign Office is acutely engaged. The concern, not only in relation to Syria but in the wider region, is that intra-community tension is becoming more apparent and support for that intra-community tension compounds that problem. It is a phenomenon of more recent years. On a personal level, my background makes me half Sunni and half Shia. As I was growing up, it was never considered to be that unusual as so many families came from that mixed background. Recent political events have brought certain differences into stark light. We see that not just in what happened in Iraq but in the wider region and also now coming to the fore in places like Pakistan. It is something that we are aware of and about which we are doing a huge amount of work, both on the ground and in strategic thinking at the Foreign Office.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I shall be brief because I do not want to repeat the questions that have already been asked, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Wood, who was perhaps moving a little away from the “me too-ism” that we have had from the Opposition in the past. Is there any movement on the part of this Government and the United States Government in relation to the position of Assad? As long as we and the United States say that we will not treat with Assad, the conflict within Syria is likely to continue for a very long time.

[Baroness Warsi]

It is not for us, the United States or anybody else to decide who should govern Syria; it is for the people of Syria to decide that. The national coalition, which is a broad coalition, is very clear that it does not feel that Assad can be part of the solution. Assad has slaughtered many of his own people and the consequent break-down of trust between those communities does not allow for Assad to play his part. However, if the Syrian people and the national coalition decided that he could play a part, it should be a matter for them, but it is not something that I can envisage in light of what is happening at the moment.