Middle East Peace Process/Syria and Iran

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. We have not set preconditions, as he can see from the number of discussions I have had with the Iranian Foreign Minister already, but we do want concrete actions to go along with words, and we do want to proceed on an agreed reciprocal basis in improving the functioning of bilateral relations. I hope that improved functioning can lead to discussion on a wider range of subjects, and my hon. Friend has mentioned some of those that could be included. We will be exploring that over the coming weeks.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s detailed statement, and his efforts to resolve numerous world conflicts. The experts face a year-long mission of unprecedented danger to destroy Syrian chemical weapons that the Syrian President said he never had. How can we trust any other promises the Syrian President may make?

[Mr Hague]

These promises are very difficult to trust, of course. That is why it is so important that verification really takes place and that the OPCW is able to report any non-compliance to the Security Council, as provided for in the resolution, so that the Security Council can consider what action to take. Of course, we all have to approach this subject with a certain degree of scepticism given the previous behaviour of the regime and its use of chemical weapons—the chemical weapons that it denied having for such a long time. On the positive side, however, it has signed up to the chemical weapons convention. Russia has committed itself very strongly to this policy and therefore has a good deal riding on its success. That should give us some cause for optimism about the future.