Libya

Lord Trimble Excerpts

Friday 1st April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trimble]

My Lords, I shall comment only on Libya, and indeed on only two aspects of it, avoiding the temptation to follow a number of other points that have been raised by noble Lords, as in the time available it would be better to concentrate my remarks. Of the two points that I wish to make, one is quite short, although I shall deal with the second at greater length.

The short one relates to the character of Gaddafi’s forces. When this situation began, I noticed press reports that Gaddafi was calling in debts from sub-Saharan countries that he had helped in the past. In particular, I noticed reports of troops being flown in from Eritrea and Zimbabwe—presumably to replace desertions from Gaddafi’s army. I have heard recently that similar support has come from Chad and Niger. Can the Minister confirm that that is the case? Can he also confirm that it is contrary to Security Council Resolution 1973? Is it still happening? What is being done to interdict these reinforcements, and do they not now constitute a very substantial part of Gaddafi’s army?

I can understand noble Lords’ concern that coalition forces should not intervene directly or invade Libya, but I think we should recognise that some other countries have already done that. There is not an even playing field in this respect and we should be more alert to the problem. We are not talking about fighting Gaddafi’s forces; these are not Gaddafi’s forces, and we should deal with that as well. Parenthetically, one thing that we should not do, but which Resolution 1973 appears to do, is to hide behind the pretence that these are mercenaries. I do not think that they are.

The other matter relates to the actions of the European Union. On Monday and Tuesday, 14 and 15 March, members of your Lordships’ EU Sub-Committee C visited Brussels. As noble Lords will know, that was a few days after David Cameron and Mr Sarkozy had been rebuffed by the Council of Ministers over the proposal for a Libyan no-fly zone. The sub-committee was primarily concerned with an inquiry into south Sudan, but we also took some evidence on Libya and I want to refer to some of that.

However, what I found most telling was the dinner that had been organised by UKREP on Monday, which was attended by several representatives from other member states at ambassadorial level. One should note that this came after support had been indicated by the Arab League. During the evening, I was struck by the vehemence of the rejection of any form of help for the Libyan democratic opposition. Not all but most of those present were using almost any argument they could lay their hands on to avoid dealing with a very clear problem right on their own doorstep. They ended by asserting that it was now too late to do anything —something that was nearly true on the subsequent Saturday but was certainly not true on that Monday.

On Tuesday, we took evidence from Mr Mingarelli, the director of the Middle East and Southern Neighbourhood, External Action Service. He brought out a more substantial problem with a no-fly zone. He said:

“Everybody says that only NATO has the capacity to mount such an operation … quickly. I have heard our chief of military staff, General van Osch, saying that it would take a long time for the EU to mount such an operation while NATO could do that rather quickly”.

Mr Mingarelli also commented on regional support. He said on the Tuesday that,

“I was yesterday in Cairo. Amr Moussa told Lady Ashton very clearly that the Arab League requests the Security Council ... to impose a no-fly zone. ... Amr Moussa was a little amazed yesterday because Lady Ashton was asking for clarification of his position. He said, ‘But there is nothing to clarify. It is clear. Look at our statement. We request the Security Council to take all necessary measures to impose a no-fly zone for the sake of protecting civilians. So what more do you want?’”.

There are some external matters that the European Union can handle, an example being trade. However, an urgent crisis with a potential military dimension is quite another matter. The EU seems instinctively to shy away from such, even in cases such as Libya, where inaction would produce a worse case, even from a purely internal EU outlook. I think that it is bad to shy away from such problems. It is even worse to create arguments against action to cover up an inability or unwillingness to act. Moreover, it is positively dangerous to pretend to be an actor in a situation while lacking the will and the capability to act. When you do not have the will and the capability, you should withdraw with such grace as you can muster instead of intermeddling in the situation to frustrate other people. That, I fear, is where the EU has left itself.

Now, it could be said that in a sense it did not matter—that Britain and France got the Security Council resolution a few days later—and it could be said that an extended debate on the issue was perhaps no bad thing. Indeed, Alistair Burt, in giving evidence to our committee, very gallantly and diplomatically took that line, and I hope that our European partners will reciprocate his consideration in due course.

More realistically, the French Foreign Minister is reported to have said that these events have killed the Union’s CSDP. I think he is right in substance but, unfortunately, I see that the Union is returning to playing games rather than being a player. I refer to the draft Council decision on a European Union military operation to support humanitarian assistance in Libya, which I understand is due for decision today. Our sub-committee became aware of this just yesterday morning. Of course, humanitarian assistance is a good thing but that has been there from the outset. The question, then, is: what is the EU military element going to do if it is attached to such an expedition? I see that the draft Council decision—it may have changed by this afternoon—recites that Egypt and Tunisia have,

“agreed on a possible EU military presence in their respective countries”.

That can mean only that humanitarian assistance is going to be delivered across the borders from Tunisia or Egypt and that an EU military presence will be there. However, what is that military presence going to do? The directive goes on at great length about the various operations and about establishing strategic control to rest with the Political and Security Committee, as well as various other things, until it finally staggers down to Article 8, where it says that consultation will take place with the African Union and NATO as appropriate. This does not seem to be a coherent way of planning a military operation which is ongoing, particularly when we bear in mind the way in which some of these countries have acted in these matters. I hope that HMG are in a position to get a better outcome if a decision is taken today. However, I leave that to the Minister.

I conclude with another gem from Tuesday’s evidence. It was given by Commissioner Fule, which I hope I am pronouncing correctly, who explained the European Union’s neighbourhood policy. He concluded:

“The neighbourhood policy, so far, is a set of instruments that will take us from point A to point B, but we have never defined point B”.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Trimble]

Wait, my Lords. He continued:

“We always hide behind words like ‘creating a tone of stability, prosperity and peace’”.

The noble Lord, Lord Radice, intervened, “And democracy”. Commissioner Fule replied:

“We have never used that word”.

Therein lies another problem.

Middle East and North Africa

Lord Trimble Excerpts

Friday 11th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trimble]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, who I think will now be known as the last British imperialist, as he revealed to us. He also, rightly, drew our attention to the existence of other empires in the region. Indeed, one of the underlying factors in the Middle East—it is low-level but significant —is the competition between three of the successor states of former empires Iran, Turkey and Egypt as to who is to be hegemonic within the region. I do not wish to develop that theme, but just mention it.

I find myself in agreement with the comments of my noble friend Lord Howell and the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, on Egypt. As they said, events are unfolding and we should be cautious in our approach to them. There is a tendency in things like this to think of the worst possible contingencies, but we should caution ourselves against assuming that they necessarily will occur. I know that there has been significant loss of life in Egypt over the recent period but we should draw some comfort from the way in which the demonstrators and the army have conducted themselves, which shows that a degree of restraint is being exercised. One hopes that that will continue to be the case because one must always bear in mind that it can be guaranteed that a resort to violence will make things worse. We hope that that will not occur.

There are other reasons for thinking that the measured responses that we have seen will be a factor in the future. I remember being told some time ago that, at the election before last in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood deliberately did not put up enough candidates to win. It succeeded, but it made sure that there was no chance of winning the election because it was all too conscious of the example of Algeria, where the victory of an Islamist party resulted in a military coup. It did not want that in Egypt, and I hope it still does not want that. It is clear from the virtually public debate within the Muslim Brotherhood that elements within it do not want a theocratic state. Therefore, we can see a desire with that party to avoid the two bad examples in the recent past in the “revolutions” in Iran and Algeria.

Rather than develop those general thoughts, I shall focus on one recent development relating to a point that all the preceding speeches have touched on; namely, the talks and relationships between Israel and Palestine. Here I draw attention to my interests which are set out in the Register of Lords’ Interests. I have no intention of discussing those matters at this point, so people can relax. My starting point may seem slightly frivolous, but it is not. It is the Palestinian papers revealed by Al-Jazeera and the Guardian a week or two ago with tremendous publicity. They have already been mentioned. I have to focus on the Guardian because I have not seen Al-Jazeera and I do not know exactly how it presented them, but I know how they were presented by the Guardian. It was a matter of shock and horror that the Palestinian Authority betrayed its people in the discussions between the Israelis and the Palestinians in which it was assumed that major settlement blocks in the vicinity of Jerusalem would be part of the future Israeli state. The reaction of the Guardian was to say that it was a disgrace.

My reaction was, “What?”. Everybody knows that that is the position. Anyone who has followed this matter closely over the years will know that although the Camp David talks did not reach agreement, considerable progress was made and the basic principle they operated on with regard to determining the boundary between Israel and Palestine was that areas occupied by Jews would be part of Israel and areas occupied by Arabs would be part of the Palestinian state. That was a general principle that could obviously not be applied to every small, isolated settlement and worked well only for areas that were contiguous to the green line. Even on that, there would be matters of interpretation, but there was still agreement on the general principle. At the end of those talks, it was possible for President Clinton to make an offer. It has not been published. Indeed, according to Dennis Ross, it was never actually written down, but President Clinton made an offer that was effectively a line. Since then, I do not think the discussions have moved significantly from that point.

That is why I was surprised that the Guardian was surprised because even if it had not looked at Camp David, and if it had looked at the map that Ehud Olmert published after the talks he was engaged in regarding the Palestinians, it would have seen the same factor. It should not have been a surprise. The principle that would apply to the modern suburbs of Jerusalem just the other side of the green line applies equally well to East Jerusalem, which would be part of the Palestinian state. Indeed, the Palestinians quite understandably wish to see their capital in that area.

Jewish commentators also reacted negatively to the Palestinian papers, particularly on the issue of dividing Jerusalem. They said that the Camp David talks had not been settled and that there were other problems that should be addressed. One person pointed particularly to security and the need for Israel to retain positions along the River Jordan to assure them of security. Again my reaction was, “What’s he worried about? Does he seriously think that the Jordanian army is going to invade across the Jordan again?”. It is again a mistake to give too much attention to security without realising that the best security for Israel will come from a friendly and strong Palestinian state. I remember having a conversation a number of years ago with a very senior person in Israel who said that people complain that the Palestinian Authority is not effective in security in the areas under its control, but it cannot be effective because it needs to have an army and it has not got one. I hope the Israelis bear that in mind in these discussions. They need to see an effective Palestinian Government because they will not have security without one.

I do not wish to belabour these points, but I come back to my earlier point about the outrage over the leaks. I wonder why there was this outrage. It should not have been there if people were properly informed. Were they informed? I do not know. I think the outrage had a purpose, and I suspect it was to undermine the concept of a two-state solution. There are those who seem to think that the solution is a one-state solution and that, if there is one state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, it will then be impossible for the Israeli Government to deny full civic rights to the Arabs, which would create a state that would not be Jewish and might even eventually have an Arab majority. That might be the objective. If that is the line behind the outrage, it is a delusion to think that that will happen. I do not think the talks on the two-state solution have failed and would not write them off. Although they may take a long time, and have already taken a long time, one should not despair of them. If they did fail, one of the options for the Israelis would be a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank and Judea. The problem with that is that they would probably withdraw back to the barrier and leave Arab areas of East Jerusalem and other areas on the wrong side of the barrier, if only to have some negotiating cards for the future. That is not something we should want. Indeed, I note that some may see a convergence of that option with the thought of some in the Palestinian Authority that it might be to their advantage unilaterally to declare an independent state. These unilateral actions by either side would not be helpful. It is much better to persevere at the talks. They have been going on for a long time. I do not intend to refer to our experience in Northern Ireland, other than to say, as I have said before on another occasion, I remember a friend saying to me in 1973 that it was perfectly obvious what the outcome was going to be. He sketched it quite accurately, and it only took us a further 25 years to get there, but I do not normally like going back to issues from that.

My basic point is that one should persevere with the two-state solution. It is the only one. One could draw some encouragement from the late Palestinian papers because it shows that on the practical issues—namely, drawing lines and all the rest of it—there is not that much difference. The real difference is that there is not yet willingness on both sides to sign off and to make an agreement. It was the same problem at the end of Camp David. There was a deal, which was, in the view of those who put it forward, a good deal. But Arafat turned it down even when, we were led to believe, a majority of his negotiators wanted him to agree to it. He was not prepared to take that step. Far too many people are not prepared to take that step.

Perhaps the noble Baroness opposite and noble Lords will forgive me for the observation that, yes, the concept of the coalition Government in Israel and the way in which they operate is a problem. If anyone should be ready or even prepared to make an agreement, it makes it very difficult for them to do that. That structural problem in the Israeli Government goes back to something which many people in this House advocate; namely, proportional representation. That is a serious point, which I hope will be taken on board by those who advocate PR. It has a downside and if you go to Israel you can see it, perhaps in a slightly extreme form.

We hope that we will see positive developments in Egypt and that there will be a spur to positive developments elsewhere, by which I mean movement towards a more democratic and a freer state. I am very glad to hear all the things that the noble Baroness said about Tunisia and what it is doing, because democracy is more than just an election. There are a whole host of things. From a point of view of the well-being of the people of the Middle East, the bedrock or starting point should be the rule of law. Without it or without it fully understood all the rest will not work properly.

Turkey

Lord Trimble Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trimble]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, on having secured this debate on such an important topic—and perhaps I may follow that with an apology. She made some references to the maritime incident involving the MV “Mavi Marmara” and other vessels. Unfortunately I will not say anything—I do not feel able to say anything—on that subject because, as noble Lords may know, I am connected with the Israeli government inquiry into that matter. So it would be quite inappropriate for me to say anything other than that I hope we will see a report from that committee within the next few weeks. That might deal with some of the points that she raised. I cannot go further than that.

As I said at the outset, this is an important debate, and I congratulate the noble Baroness on drawing attention to this matter. As she says, Turkey is important. It is important because of its size, because of its economy and because of the growth in its population and its economy, the latter having been particularly notable over recent years. It is also important in terms of its geopolitical situation and its relationship with the European Union. As the noble Baroness says, we have long been very supportive of the Turkish application to join the European Union. I have always seen that as a hugely important step forward, if it can be brought to fruition.

As the noble Baroness says, through NATO Turkey has contributed significantly to European security over the years and has achieved a degree of integration into a number of European institutions. Turkey is also a hugely important bridge between Europe and Asia and between the largely Christianised West and the Islamic East and Middle East. Of course people in the latter community will look to see how Europe deals with Turkey as an indicator in that respect, and perhaps I may remark parenthetically on that point. We tend to forget that one of the main drivers of the radicalisation of Muslim minorities in this and other European countries was originally what happened in Bosnia, when Muslim minorities in our own states saw what happened to the Muslim minority in the Balkans, and the palpable failure of Europe to protect it. We tend to forget that that was a significant factor in radicalisation long before anything else came over the horizon. That is a parenthetical remark which I will not follow further at the moment.

One of the problems with being a bridge is that it involves a degree of ambiguity. Bridges link the two communities, or two elements, that we have mentioned in terms of Europe and Asia, Christians and Muslims; but the question arises of which way the bridge is balanced and which way it looks. There we have ambiguities which unfortunately are not being resolved in a particularly helpful way. The existence of the Turkish application to join the European Union, and the way in which Europe has responded to it, is bringing those ambiguities to the fore. The noble Baroness referred to the way that so many of the chapters in Turkey’s application are being blocked, some by the European Commission, some by reference to the problems over Cyprus, some by Cyprus itself, and some by the French. She linked that to the negative statements on this issue that have come from the French and the Germans; and we all know that within the European Union, the French and the Germans tend to be the arbiters of policy. If they are negative, what prospect is there for this negotiation to come to fruition, and what impact will that have on Turkey?

Indeed, what impact has it already had on Turkey? Again we see ambiguities in that what has been happening in Turkey over the past few years can be seen as a turning away from Europe and towards other directions. Let us consider the referendum which was held last year and the constitutional changes which flowed from it. These can be seen, as the noble Baroness said, as a way in which Turkey is accepting the democratic standards that exist in the European Union—which is a positive—but they can also be seen as the AK Government taking further steps to dismantle the elements of the Kemalist state. It is the Kemalist state that is responsible for the degree of secularisation that exists in Turkish society. If the Kemalist state is being dismantled, what is the future for secularism in Turkey, particularly as the AKP is to some extent an Islamic party? The AKP portrays itself as a moderate Islamic party and barrier against more extreme Islamic elements, but again these are matters of interpretation. That is what I mean about ambiguities there.

Even in terms of Turkey’s approach to policy elsewhere in the Middle East, there are ambiguities. One does not object to Turkey being a major player in the Middle East since its location, size and economic position points in that direction, and it is quite natural for Turkey to look to the areas of influence that are available to it there, but again we see elements of ambiguity. The noble Baroness referred to relations between Turkey and Israel. One positive aspect is that, only a year or so ago, the Turkish Government brokered talks between Israel and Syria. At the time it seemed a positive development, and we are delighted that the Turkish Government facilitated the indirect talks that took place. It seemed a positive step on the part of both the Israelis and the Turkish Government, and, one hopes, of the Syrians. The talks did not come to fruition but the fact that they occurred is worth noting. In that respect, Turkey was assisting the political process in the Middle East. On the other hand, when we look at Turkey’s position with regard to Palestinian grievances, Turkey has tended to align itself with Hamas rather than with the Palestinian Authority. That is not going to advance the Middle East political process at all, so there is an ambiguity there.

There is even an ambiguity in another direction. In recent years, Turkish diplomats have reached out towards Armenia, which is a sensitive issue. In a recent visit to the city of Kars, which once had a large Armenian community that was annihilated in 1915, there is some element of reconciliation through the erection of a large statue to humanity. However, Mr Erdogan has made negative comments about it and called for it to be demolished, which leaves open questions about what his position is with regard to that area too.

So we see ambiguities which we hope will be resolved positively. We hope that the position with regard to Europe can be resolved positively, although the outlook is not terribly bright at the moment.