Syria

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) and her commitment to this area. She is co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Syria, and I acknowledge the work that she does in raising these matters in the Chamber and elsewhere. The House is all the wiser for it. She raises a series of issues and I will do my best to answer them, but, as I have done in the past, I will write to her with more detail.

On the hon. Lady’s last question, about making sure that aid gets through, I am pleased to see that I am joined here and supported by my colleagues from the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence. As the hon. Lady knows, we hosted the Syria conference a couple of weeks ago in order to make sure, first, that the funds were available for the United Nations organisations to get to the necessary areas to provide the aid and assistance once the cessation of hostilities had taken effect. There have been varying degrees of success in trucks getting through. She will be aware that we have to get confirmation from the regime that the trucks can have safe passage. Airdrops have been used for the first time but have been less successful, for obvious reasons—factors such as who receives the kit on the ground, the weather conditions, where the supplies land, and ownership of the supplies once the drops take place all present difficulties, but further drops will take place in the future.

The hon. Lady asks what more can be done. It is imperative that those who are putting together the ceasefire, which is happening at the highest level from the telephone calls between President Putin and President Obama, create and co-ordinate the verification model. That is not fully in place. This is a highly complex task because of the number of players involved across Syria and the challenges in making sure that verification can take place. The UK is pushing the ISSG co-chairs to investigate all allegations. We are using our own capabilities to feed into the system any violations that we become aware of so that they can be investigated. We have sent additional staff to the UN in Geneva to assist in this effort, and we are negotiating and discussing these matters with our UN Security Council colleagues.

The hon. Lady talked about the difficulties in Aleppo. The situation is concerning. In the lead-up to the cessation of hostilities, people took advantage before the cessation came into effect on 27 February. As I said in my opening remarks, it is imperative that Russia shows leadership and shows that it recognises that it has a unique place and unique influence with the Assad regime, to make sure that the purpose of the cessation of hostilities, which is to allow that political transition, is achieved.

The hon. Lady asked about the talks taking place with Staffan de Mistura on 7 March. It is critical to get the parties together. They broke apart last time because of the continued bombing that took place. It was the UN envoy who closed the meeting down before somebody walked out again. We do not want to see that repeated, which is why we are encouraging parties to resume those discussions, taking advantage of the cessation of hostilities that is in place, and we hope they are successful.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Notwithstanding the wholly understandable scepticism of the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) about Russian intentions, the fact is that this ceasefire would not have happened had it not been pushed for quite hard by the Russians, alongside the United States. The Minister referred to verification mechanisms, but what practical military-to-military co-ordination is going on between the Russians and the coalition to ensure that any breaches of the ceasefire are immediately understood and brought to an end and that, as far as possible, the ceasefire is properly observed, without accidents happening and with both sides knowing what the other is doing?

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, raises an important point, which I will divide in two, if I may. There is a deconfliction system that makes sure that the coalition’s aircraft and involvement are separated from Russia’s, and that has now been in place for some time. However, what we are talking about here is a verification mechanism for the cessation of hostilities. The verification process has yet to be put in place; it is still being agreed by the co-chairs—Russia and the United States—and details will emerge soon.