Syria

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I hope that such judgments will be a matter for the Syrian people in their own state and through their own judicial system. I know that that seems a long way away today, but I hope that that will be the way forward. It will also be open to a future Syrian Government to refer their own country to the International Criminal Court. These matters must be dealt with through the proper processes and I do not want to speculate about how many people have committed war crimes, but, on the regime side at least, it will be a very large number.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

If it is important not to dismantle the institutions of the state, is anyone talking to the Alawites to see what a post-Assad Syria would look like?

[Mr Hague]

That is partly the purpose of the negotiations. We want the regime and the opposition to engage in serious negotiations about how a transitional Government would work. The National Coalition has set out its commitment to a non-sectarian Syria, which would include the role of the Alawites. We do not have any such vision from the regime, because it has not set out a vision other than one in which President Assad stays in power and negotiations take place only with the tamer elements of the opposition. I hope that the negotiations are sufficiently successful that they get into the matter of the nature of a Syria after transition.