Syria

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his contributions. As I said in my opening responses, we are absolutely focused on protecting civilians, including religious and ethnic minorities. We have made that clear publicly but, more importantly, in all our conversations with groups. The noble Lord is absolutely right to draw attention particularly to the religious minorities, which have been focused on, and on which we have been keen to focus. By the way, I am sure that the noble Lord will be pleased that we have now appointed a Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion or Belief. I have met him, and we are working together now. This is a key area that we will be particularly focused on.

The noble Lord’s other point came up in our last Statement, and I responded to the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, on it—but at the moment I cannot find it in my notes, so I shall write to noble Lords.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, first, in recognising and welcoming the Statement, I think that the sentiments in the Statement are reflected in what we all think—but the importance is in actions. Syria is in a very fluid situation, as the Minister acknowledged. I welcome his update on which Minister attended the Aqaba meeting, which Geir Pedersen also attended, along with US Secretary of State Blinken. What were the outcomes from that meeting on specific responsibilities on who does what, and what process will be taken forward, bearing in mind the situation with warring factions and the instability in Syria, as well as the notable challenges that neighbouring countries are facing; for example, from the drugs trade in Captagon, a major challenge for neighbouring states?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

On that last point, of course Captagon is a real challenge, and the Assad regime used it to fund many of its activities. Certainly, it has regional implications, and it has spread to countries in the region. Fortunately, there is no evidence that it has spread to this country, but we are acutely aware of the dangers of it in countries in regional proximity, and we are giving what assistance we can in challenging that.

The noble Lord asked specific questions about the post process. As I said at the beginning, it is very fluid—and it is clear that we need to engage a range of partners, including specific neighbourhood countries but also international multilateral institutions, as we are doing. We are also acutely aware that there are changes ahead in the new year, and we need to ensure that we have consistency of approach. We are working closely with all our colleagues and allies and all countries in the region to ensure that stability, peace and security remain at the forefront of all our efforts.

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[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that contribution. He is absolutely right that we need to judge the situation by deeds, rather than simply words, and we will continue to do so. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, is in his place because he was one of the longest-serving Ministers in the last Government, as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He and I had debates on Syria in which we supported his Government’s position in not recognising Assad and not recognising that the situation was simple. We were as one in ensuring that we did not give support to Assad’s criminal actions. Some people felt that was the wrong position, but events have proved that both the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, and the then Opposition were absolutely right.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I feel compelled to rise to my feet in the time left to thank the noble Lord. In the same way, we want to work constructively to ensure that the group that is HTS— Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the ideological base of this—should not be forgotten. The fact is that it is an extremist organisation with terrorism roots. Yes, they say a leopard does not change its spots—the jury is out. We want to work constructively to ensure that ideological base is challenged. As the noble Lord rightly said, actions speak louder than words.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that comment. I hope I can speak for the next six or seven seconds to ensure that I do not have to respond to any further questions.