Daesh: Syria/Iraq

Jo Cox Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend on that. The Sunni-Shi’a division in the middle east, which is a relatively new phenomenon to the politics of the region, is unhelpful and, ultimately, destabilising. I am assured by my Saudi Arabian counterpart that the initial 34 nations that have announced their membership of this coalition is not an exclusive list and that other countries are considering joining. I very much hope that further countries will join, giving it the broadest base and the greatest legitimacy possible.

[Jo Cox (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I remain deeply concerned about the lack of progress on civilian protection inside Syria, much of which is being perpetrated by the Assad regime. Does the Secretary of State agree that ending Assad’s indiscriminate use of barrel bombs is a key confidence-building measure that should be prioritised alongside efforts towards a formal ceasefire? Should a ceasefire not be delivered on Friday, may I urge him to look again at other measures to protect civilians, including putting in place no-bombing zones. Will he also reconfirm the Government’s unequivocal commitment not to have truck with anyone—including the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)—who says that working with Assad’s forces is a compromise that we should be willing to make? That would be not only morally wrong, but counter-productive given that Assad is Daesh’s biggest recruiting sergeant.

[Mr Hammond]

As I said in my statement, the US Secretary of State aspires to deliver a ceasefire as an outcome of Friday’s meeting, but even he recognises that that is ambitious. We are also very focused on confidence-building measures, which do not go as far as a ceasefire, but are likely to be more readily achievable. They include an end to the use of indiscriminate weapons in civilian areas, an end to the bombing of hospitals and medical facilities and a guarantee of humanitarian access to besieged areas on both sides of the conflict. The hon. Lady asked me whether we would consider alternative methods of protecting the civilian population, with specific emphasis on no-bomb zones. We have looked extensively at that, and much military effort has gone into analysing what is and what is not possible. I am afraid that the analysis is that it will not be something that is practical to deliver in the absence of forces on the ground, and, as she knows, we have no intention of committing forces on the ground.

I want to pick up on the point that the hon. Lady made about Assad. The reason we say that Assad can play no part in the future is not just to do with a sense of moral outrage about what he has done. We all want to end the killing and, despite what has happened in the past, if I thought that that would bring an end to the killing more quickly, I would look at it, but it will not. We will not get a ceasefire, an end to the civil war and all the guns in Syria turned on Daesh until Assad has gone.