Syria

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The groups outside Syria that we are supporting—the kind of groups that I have been meeting in Istanbul—include the Syrian National Council, which is the largest of these groups, although some of the minority ethnic communities are not yet affiliated to it, and we want them to come together. All our support is non-lethal. Our assistance takes the form that I described in my statement—communications equipment, training, and human rights monitoring. No armed intervention is being practised or sanctioned by the United Kingdom at the moment.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

After meeting Chancellor Merkel recently, Russia’s President Putin sought to claim impartiality, reportedly saying, “We are not for Assad and neither for his opponents.” If this were really so, does the Foreign Secretary consider that future Russian support for a Security Council resolution referring the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court could help to deter future atrocities in that country?

[Mr Hague]

Certainly that is something that we have wanted to get going, and we have succeeded in doing so in the UN Human Rights Council resolution, which refers to the International Criminal Court. Such are the atrocities and the appalling nature of these crimes that if we could muster the votes to take that through the Security Council itself, we would do so. I hope that at some stage in the future we will be able to do so, and that we will be able to take the Russian leaders at their word on this, but what they have said recently about not being committed to Assad himself or to the Assad regime has not yet translated into a readiness to support such resolutions.