Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Hylton

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for strengthening the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to strengthening the capacities of the OSCE, particularly in relation to its crucial role in the Ukraine crisis. In 2014, the UK has been among the largest contributors to the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, providing more than £3 million-worth of funding and equipment and seconding more than 20 UK nationals. Additionally, more than 170 UK election observers joined the two OSCE observation missions in Ukraine this year.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord for concentrating his reply on Ukraine. Would he agree that violations of the ceasefire and the presence of Russian military equipment and personnel, as well as the devastation of civilian areas and the onset of winter and diseases, all make the case for strengthening the OSCE’s mandate and personnel in the field?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, at the Basel ministerial meeting of the OSCE last week, Russia was supported only by Belarus in resisting precisely the proposals that the noble Lord has just made.

Ukraine

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Hylton

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

The Minister referred to the fact that OSCE monitors have been denied access. I understand that the Russians are claiming that something like 100 international monitors went in. Is that true or are they misleading us? If it is true, do we know where those monitors came from in the world community?

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, before the Minister replies to that, will he say something about the OSCE in the sense that it may well provide an opportunity for achieving consensus for de-escalating the situation and for the giving up of extreme positions?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not have any information on the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I am aware of Russian reports that observers are there. They are certainly not under any international or umbrella organisation, the Council of Europe or the OSCE. We hope to discover more. The OSCE does have a role to play and a number of OSCE missions of one sort or another are currently either in Ukraine or in prospect, and members of those missions are British. The OSCE is an entirely appropriate framework to work with for this development.

Russia, as noble Lords know, has not always been the most constructive member of the OSCE in recent years. A number of noble Lords suggested that we may have contributed to that, and perhaps have even provoked Russia. Bill Cash MP was indeed interviewed on “Russia Today” last Thursday suggesting that it was really all the EU’s fault. I am not entirely sure that I share that view. Comparisons are also made between Kosovo and Crimea, to which I would simply say that our action in Kosovo was a response to a humanitarian situation in which there was clear evidence of ethnic cleansing and that a large number of people had been killed. It was a slow process in which we recognised that the situation was slipping out of control. None of that has happened in Crimea. The interim Government in Kiev bear no comparison with Belgrade under Milosevic and we took action in Kosovo only after years of diplomatic effort, whereas in Crimea Russia has chosen the military option first and rushed through what appears to be likely annexation.

I turn to the situation within Ukraine. My noble friend Lord Alderdice suggested that Ukraine is split down the middle. To that I would say that it is more confused, fractured, misgoverned and mistrustful. There is some evidence that many Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine are more mistrustful of Russia now than they were even a year or two ago, with some justification. The extent to which we understand what is happening inside Ukraine is something that I suspect we need to be cautious about.

The biggest question is this: can the West’s soft power defeat Russia’s hard power? It did not in 1913-14. The suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford—who I regret to see has not remained in his place having intervened earlier—was that Russia would just shrug economic sanctions off. However, a number of noble Lords talked about the long-term costs in terms of shifting away from energy imports. Of course we are talking to other countries, including the Norwegians, about future energy supplies. The costs to Russia in terms of a deterioration in foreign investment and of its other openings are likely to be quite damaging in the long term. The question here is how long is the long term, and what damage under its current regime can Russia do first?

Let me try to cover one or two other points before I finish. I can confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that it is not British policy that Ukraine should join NATO. Many of us felt that the attempt by the Bush Administration at the Bucharest summit in 2008 to push NATO enlargement as far as Georgia and Ukraine was a mistake. The Foreign Secretary has said on a number of occasions that we are not asking Ukraine to choose between Russia and the West, but I should also remind noble Lords that the EU’s approach to enlargement was not a great push by the Union. As I discovered when I first started going around eastern Europe in the 1990s, it was a reluctant response to insistent demands from our eastern European partners to gain access to our legal framework, to our economy and to our security provisions. The Estonians and others were particularly strong on that. There is a monument in Tallinn to the British squadron which preserved the independence of Estonia from the Russians in 1919, and the country still remembers that. The Poles, who have a lot of influence in this area, are also conscious that they contributed a great deal to the British effort in the Second World War, something which UKIP has now happily scrubbed out of our historical memory. The largest number of non-British pilots in the Battle of Britain were Polish, so we are not dealing with an area with which we have no historical concern or very little historical connection.

I am conscious of the time. A number of noble Lords spoke about money-laundering. We have sent a group from the National Crime Agency, the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service to help the Ukrainians in their efforts to investigate the stolen funds and we are working with them on that. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, raised some very specific questions about the Magnitsky case, which it may be appropriate for me to write to him about.

We have to reassure our east European allies. We are working with our friends and colleagues and will continue to do so as well as we can. We are in mid-crisis and do not know how or when this crisis will end, but Her Majesty’s Government will continue to work with our European and NATO partners and, more broadly, within and through the UN. There are fundamental principles of international law and sovereignty at stake, so we will return to this issue in both Houses of Parliament as we proceed. We will of course attempt to maintain a dialogue with the Russians, difficult though that is likely to be, and to pursue a reasoned and reasonable outcome. We will offer all the technical and financial assistance we can to Ukraine, together with our partners. As in so many international crises, there is no easy solution to be found, and we have to bend our efforts to promote an outcome that may be acceptable to all.

Syria: Peace Initiative

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Hylton

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I agree. I should also say that the British Foreign Secretary has worked extremely hard over the past nine months and more to come to terms with the Russians and to develop a relationship with the Russian Foreign Minister. The European Union high representative, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, has also done a great deal of work with the Russians on Syria and as part of the E3+3 on Iran.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome very much the first steps in restoring diplomatic relations with Iran and the Foreign Secretary’s meeting with his Iranian counterpart. Does the Minister agree that Iran can be enormously helpful in Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan, as well as in the other country mentioned by the right reverend Prelate? If there is progress on these fronts, would that not justify further steps in normalising our relations?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Of course it would. However, we are proceeding slowly and cautiously. There was an Iranian invasion of the British embassy compound only two years ago and we are conscious, as the Foreign Secretary said in his Statement to the Commons the other day, that the Iranian political system is a complex structure and that to be President of Iran is not necessarily to command all power in Iran. When President Rouhani returned most recently he was cheered in the streets of Tehran, but he was booed and his car was apparently pelted by members of the Basij militia.

Defence: Trident Review

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Hylton

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, is there not a contradiction between, on the one hand, the statements of successive British Governments about the weapons of mass destruction of others and the risk, therefore, of killing non-combatant civilians and, on the other hand, their own possession of nuclear missiles?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have no doubt that when the Trident alternatives review is published, it will stimulate a good deal of, I hope, informed and rational debate about the future of our nuclear weapons programme and of nuclear weapons as a whole. That was part of the intention of commissioning this review.

Syria

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Hylton

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, by its nature when a very localised civil war is under way, it is very difficult for any of us to control what the outcome will be. The only assurance that I, or any other international actor, can give is that Her Majesty’s Government are working with our allies and partners in the Middle East and attempting to persuade the Russian and Chinese Governments to work towards the achievement of a negotiated solution that would see a more inclusive Government replace the Assad regime.

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, have the Government studied the recent proposal for transitional justice in Syria, put forward by the Syrian Support Group? If implemented, would it not have the effect of separating ordinary, innocent Alawis from the regime?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there are a great many efforts under way to protect the Alawi minority, the Christian minority and the smaller number of Druze within Syria from what could easily deteriorate into a sectional jihad. We are all very worried about that possibility. A great deal of work is under way, quite a lot of it funded by DfID, to advise the Opposition about negotiated transition, rebuilding local communities and providing the basic services that people need to start the process of reconciliation.

Japan and the Middle East

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Hylton

Monday 14th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, was trying to get in earlier.

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, I welcome the changes that are now under way in the EU neighbourhood plans and in the conditions attaching to them. Does the Leader of the House agree that it is probably unlikely that there will be sufficient agreement for mounting an effective military intervention, even for the limited task of protecting the people of Cyrenaica who have established their own freedom? If so, will warning be given in good time to the leaders of the uprising that they will, in effect, not be defended or protected? Will sufficient transport be available for those involved in the insurgency who wish to leave the country? Are plans being made for where these people might wish to go?

Israel and Palestine: Deportations

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Hylton

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baroness, and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, east Jerusalem is occupied territory and its Palestinian population has rights under the Geneva conventions. Forcibly transferring people out of the city on the basis of political affiliation is illegal. This comes against a backdrop of other developments that appear designed to consolidate the annexation of east Jerusalem. Such actions erode trust between the parties at a crucial time in negotiations. The EU has raised the matter with the Israeli Government, while Her Majesty’s ambassador to Tel Aviv has raised it with Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. I should mention that I was one of three Members of your Lordships’ House who visited three out of the four Palestinian elected Members when they had taken refuge with the International Committee of the Red Cross in east Jerusalem in July. The noble Lord referred to international law. If the expulsions take place, will the Government ensure that Israel suffers an appropriate penalty?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the question of what an appropriate penalty is is a matter for delicate negotiations. We wish the current negotiations between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority to succeed and we wish to do nothing that will disrupt the chances of them succeeding, but it might be helpful to the House if I read a short part of Article 49 of the fourth Geneva convention, which states:

“Individual … transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory … are prohibited, regardless of their motive”.

It adds:

“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.

Middle East: Refugees

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Hylton

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will work for a comprehensive agreement covering all refugees arising from the Middle East since 1948.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a range of refugee problems in the Middle East, including those of the Kurds and the Iranians, mostly in Iraq. The two major refugee issues are of course the Palestinian refugees from Israel in a number of countries, and the 4 million Iraqis displaced both within Iraq and as refugees in surrounding countries. A comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian issue will have to include a settlement for refugees as part of the final agreement. The Iraqi problem depends on restoring stability in Iraq.

[Lord Hylton]

I thank the noble Lord for his reply. Does he agree that the Palestinian refugees registered with the United Nations number some 4.8 million, and that Syria, Jordan and Lebanon contain about 1.7 million Iraqi refugees? This amounts to a population larger than that of many small states. Therefore, will the Government work not only for the comprehensive agreement that he mentioned, but more specifically for the resettlement of these people who have suffered so much for so long?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are working with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN relief and rehabilitation organisations to assist these refugees. Most of the Iraqis wish to go back to Iraq when they can. We will have a Question tomorrow about continuing violence in Baghdad and elsewhere, which is part of the problem. For the Palestinian refugees, this is of course a much longer-term and much more complex issue that has to be part of the negotiations for a comprehensive settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.