Syria

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Thursday 28th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, of course the Government support the quest of the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, to ask all sides in the conflict, the existing regime and the opposition, to open all corridors, as they have previously agreed to do. We and all members of the P5—including the Russians, with the existing regime—keep imploring all sides that UN humanitarian relief must be taken in. As the noble Lord and the House will be aware, the UK is leading the way in humanitarian relief. Indeed, we have committed almost half a billion pounds to relieve the plight of refugees in the Syrian conflict.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, further to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, would the Government consider approaching those who will be attending the Geneva conference with the specific request that there should be a demand for a peace truce between now and the conference taking place, in an appropriate period over Christmas? Further, can the Minister say anything about the neighbouring countries of the Middle East? For example, will the Saudi Arabians be represented at this conference, and will Iran?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

On the first part of my noble friend’s question, as I have said, at every point in time the British Government, the UN and everyone working on the ground and through political dialogue have been encouraging the opening up of humanitarian corridors and that peace and ceasefire prevail. We will continue to do that in the intervening period. On her point about who will be attending this conference, as I said, a meeting is scheduled on 20 December at which the agreement on the format of the meeting and who will be attending will be made. On her final point about Iran, of course we welcomed the decision made earlier this week. However, before any step forward, Iran must commit itself to the Geneva communiqué—which, as my noble friend knows, calls for a negotiated political settlement between the Assad regime and the opposition.

Israel and Palestine

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord for his words. Of course, irrespective of the colour of its Administration, over the years the UK has been consistent in ensuring that we require a two-state solution, which, as he said, secures the borders of Israel in a secure way and ensures that the Palestinians have a viable state. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has made it clear that there is no greater global priority for the UK than the search for peace in the Middle East. Let me assure the noble Lord that Britain is working intensively to support all parties in their efforts to achieve a negotiated end to this conflict, which has gone on for far too long.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

While it is very welcome that 26 of the Palestinians internees have been released, there are still many thousands of Palestinians in prison. Does the Minister agree that further steps to release yet more prisoners and perhaps, equally importantly, a pause in the settlement policy, at least while the negotiations are continuing, would be very welcome steps towards the outcome we all want to see?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend raises two very important points. I reassure her and the whole House that the Government believe that any steps taken by both sides to encourage the peace process are welcome. I state once again that the UK Government retain their position that the settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank are classified as illegal and do not help in the process for peace.

Iran

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Thursday 24th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, I very much agree with what has already been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, and I congratulate her on calling this timely debate. I also strongly support what was said by my noble friend Lord Lamont, who was absolutely right in suggesting that it is perfectly possible to now open negotiations with Iran on a serious basis. I add only one thing to what he said about that, which is that Iran has already suggested that it could move away from the 20% refinement figure across the front, where it started moving in that direction, and back to the 5% which is compatible with civilian uses of nuclear power. That should be carefully tested, investigated and discussed so that we can find out how much credence there is in what has already been said.

The only other point that I will make is that it is difficult to look at a country like Iran and not recognise that it has profound reasons to be frightened of being attacked. We tend to forget in this country that the Iran-Iraq war brought, as my noble friend said, 500,000 casualties. That is a rather modest figure; my understanding is that it was probably more like 800,000, of which the larger proportion was Iranian casualties. Why? Because only Iraq used chemical weapons; Iran never resorted to them. Iraq used both sarin and mustard gas, which are long-standing and extremely agonising forms of chemical weaponry. It can fairly be said that there is not a single country in the world, not even Syria, which has suffered as much from the use of chemical weapons as Iran. Despite that, Iran has never attempted to build up chemical weapons. Compared to the huge reserves of 10,000 tonnes that we know Syria has, the core of the matter is that Iran has never moved in that direction. It has repeatedly said that it regards chemical weapons as totally unacceptable.

On a more general note, I understand that up until now, the United Nations has not sent an invitation to Iran to take part in the Geneva II negotiations which are likely to happen later this year or, at the very latest, early next spring. I find that puzzling given that Iran is the second-greatest regional power in the whole area, and also given that it is seen as an ally by Syria. Assad has not said himself that he will go to any Geneva II negotiations, but there is surely reason to believe that if his closest ally, Iran, is there, he is much more likely to go than if it is not there. Perhaps my noble friend Lady Warsi will tell us something about the prospects for Geneva II including Iran as one of the countries sitting round the table. It is vital because, like it or not, Iran is seen by the whole of the Shia group of Muslims throughout the world as being the lead country. Therefore, its non-presence would almost certainly undermine the value of those negotiations.

I will say two other things before turning to one or two practical ideas that could be used to create a much closer and mutually constructive relationship with Iran. I fully share what has already been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, and the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, on the subject of issues that can be taken up and used in this respect. The first thing I will say is that there is a colossal misunderstanding about Iran in the West. I will take just one example, as a woman Member of the House of Lords. It is widely believed in large parts of the United States that Iran is rather like Saudi Arabia: that women walk around fully veiled, are not allowed to drive cars, have no education and are deeply and profoundly suppressed. Not so. Some 55% of undergraduates in Iran at the present time are women, and there are large numbers of women at the very top of both the legal and medical professions.

I completely share what was said by both previous speakers about human rights. We absolutely need to insist that Iran lives up to the highest standards of human rights and that it releases more—indeed, ultimately all—its prisoners who have not been tried. It is vital that we better understand that this great civilisation is not the same as some of the excesses that one sees in other countries. Incidentally, the widely held belief that Iran is Arab is also completely misleading. The fact that it is multifaceted in religious terms is an important point to make. There are still active members of the Zoroastrian community in Iran, which is an ancient civilisation.

Practically, what can we do? I suggest that there are three areas where we could create much better relations with Iran without damaging in any way the serious considerations that have to be brought to bear on such things as nuclear weapons and so forth. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, mentioned the possibility of much closer relations with universities. My noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury recently went to the University of Isfahan, which is a very famous and ancient university, and also to the University of Tehran. In both cases he was told very strongly that they would welcome a much closer relationship with a matching United Kingdom university. They did not specify which ones, but they made it clear that they would be wide open to such proposals.

There is another serious issue which involves the universities. That is, as some noble Lords in the Room already know, that there is a very serious incidence of drug-related tuberculosis in Zahedan, in the south-eastern part of Iran. I will spell it for Hansard. I am not sure I have pronounced it right. The important point is that drug-related TB is not a respecter of borders. It crosses them very happily. We know from our own experience of drug-related tuberculosis among some migrants to Britain how crucial it is to try to deal with this at the source. Iran comes second only to India in the incidence of drug-related TB. We have in Britain university departments that are highly instructed about and knowledgeable about drug-related TB. This is, again, an obvious win-win example of what can be done.

Secondly—and I now look firmly at the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, who will be surprised that I address him—I strongly believe that a group of religious leaders from Britain would be very welcome in Iran and would do a great deal to bridge the gap between us and this strange country, which is rather like the Holy Roman Empire, in that it is at once both a religious and a political entity. I have always been puzzled why the great advantage that the Church of England has in this respect, as a state-based religion, could not be used to create much closer relations with Iran.

My final point is very important. We have in this Room—I invited him as a guest—Professor Lightfoot, who is the leader of the co-ordinating organisation of international research into disease surveillance. He has set up, all over the world, networks of people looking at surveillance of a disease and how it moves across the world. He has just been approached by Iran, Armenia, Georgia, and other countries with a view to setting up a regional network. I can think of nothing better—less objectionable, politically speaking—than to set up such a—

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I must ask my noble friend to conclude.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I will be finished in a moment. There could be nothing better than to set up an international network of this kind and to support Iran’s being part of it. I commend the idea to the Minister.