Ukraine, Syria and Iran

Lord Hurd of Westwell Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hurd of Westwell (Con)]

My Lords, has my noble friend seen some rather disturbing press reports today about rows and ructions within the group of Syrians who are opposed to the Assad regime? This has happened before and it may happen again, but how does my noble friend assess the cohesion of the anti-Assad forces in Syria?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is a very difficult question to answer in some ways because, as the noble Lord well knows, there is a very large variety of fighting groups. Indeed, in north-eastern Syria in the past week or two the moderate forces in the opposition have been fighting radical jihadis to expel them from ground otherwise occupied by the opposition. However, my experience of the Geneva II talks so far is that the representatives of the Syrian National Council have been more coherent and more constructive than some had predicted in advance. We are doing all we can to support the Syrian National Council in being an inclusive body, including Kurdish and Christian representatives, women and so on, and in strengthening its links with the moderate fighting forces on the ground. Of course, the picture remains extremely unclear. It is currently very difficult to get around inside Syria for obvious reasons, but we are a little more confident than we were that there is a reasonable opposition willing to work for a transition regime, through which we and others can work.