Syria

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, I think there is a lot in that as well. It is generally true to say that there is now a greater appetite among some of the outside powers for a political settlement in Syria than there might be among some of the people who are fighting each other in Syria. It was clear in our discussions yesterday that all 11 members of the core group of the Friends of Syria supported a political settlement and wanted the opposition to go to Geneva II. That included Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states, which have been mentioned in these questions. We also need Russia to assist in bringing the regime to Geneva II in the same spirit, and that is what Secretary Kerry has been pursuing with the Russians today. We will all be pursuing it with them over the coming days.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the Foreign Secretary’s acknowledgement of the impact on Christian and other religious minorities of the al-Qaeda depredations in northern Syria. I also welcome his assurances of focus in that respect. May I press him further and say that one of the key issues is humanitarian aid? Many of the people affected will require resettlement in areas in which their families have lived for hundreds of years. It will also be important to extend diplomatic assurances to those people so that President Assad does not try to recruit them as proxies to shore up his own power in Syria.

[Mr Hague]

Yes, that is also true. The hon. Gentleman is looking ahead a bit, however. We are not yet in a situation where people can go back to their homes or be resettled, or where assurances can be given about the position of different communities in Syria. In a way, that would be a good problem to have. It is the next stage that we will need to move on to. Our overwhelming emphasis now is on staunching the bloodshed, but we will have to move on to those issues and he is quite right to raise them.