Aleppo

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

First, may I pay tribute to the hon. Lady’s work as chair of the all-party friends of Syria group? It is important that the House is kept up to date with the fluid events taking place in that country. Let me qualify her remarks: the Foreign Secretary is returning from an important visit to Latin America; otherwise, he would be in the Chamber responding on this very important matter.

The hon. Lady raised a number of issues and I will do my best to go through them efficiently. First, I absolutely concur with her: it is Syria that is very much responsible for the significant number of deaths of people in the country of all religions, particularly the Sunnis. That is why we call on Russia to use its influence to bring Assad to account and to make sure that we can get access. Following the previous ceasefire, we gained access to about a third of the areas that we could not previously get to. We hope that we can unlock the situation and get access in the forthcoming days.

The hon. Lady mentioned methods of delivery, particularly airdrops. There are places in Daesh-held territory where it is possible, because of air superiority, to fly slow and low enough to drop aid packages accurately, but that is not the case for some of the conurbations and communities in the built-up areas. Aleppo is Syria’s largest city by some margin, and not only are the opposition and the Assad Government there; al-Nusra is there as well. Without the regime’s support—it has air superiority—we cannot carry out the airdrops that the hon. Lady would like. It is better to get agreement from Assad to take trucks straight into those places so that they can go directly to the people in need. Airdrops can land randomly. They often get into the wrong hands and do not help the very vulnerable whom we wish to support.

The hon. Lady mentioned the role of other countries, including Saudi Arabia. Foreign Minister al-Jubeir is in Geneva with John Kerry at the moment, playing his role. Let us not forget that it was Saudi Arabia that brought together the opposition groups in the first place in December, which began the three rounds of talks that have taken place.

The hon. Lady talked about the importance of collecting evidence. We had a very good debate two weeks ago about genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. We are playing a leading role in making sure that people are brought to justice. As we saw in the case of the former Serbian-Bosnian leader, Radovan Karadžic, sometimes the process takes many years, but we are actively and heavily involved—we are likely to make more effort—in making sure that we collect the evidence as we speak.

The hon. Lady made an interesting comment about placing Syria on the “too difficult” pile. I ask the House to consider how different Syria might look if, in August 2013, we had voted in favour of punitive bomb strikes. Daesh did not even exist in Syria at that time—it had no foothold whatsoever. Instead, this House stepped back from that decision, and I think that we will live to regret that.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Back in February, President Assad described retaking the whole of Syria as

“a goal we are seeking to achieve without hesitation”,

but he was slapped down by the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, who said:

“I heard President Assad’s remarks on television…Of course, they do not chime with the diplomatic efforts that Russia is undertaking”.

The Foreign Secretary has admitted that he does not get much out of his conversations with Foreign Minister Lavrov. Does the Minister think that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has the necessary capacity satisfactorily to read Russian interests and intentions?

[Mr Ellwood]

The key relationship that has developed and that allows us to place greater emphasis on Russia—whether it be Putin, Lavrov or Bogdanov—is that with John Kerry. The closeness with which he is working with the Foreign Secretary shows that we are playing our part as well. From a humanitarian perspective, we are the second largest donor to the country. We are playing our part on the humanitarian aspect as well as with regard to the military. We are very much at the forefront of activities but, ultimately, it is not for the Americans or the British but for Russia to determine that it is going to place pressure on Assad to allow access to the very areas into which we need to get humanitarian aid.