Syria

John Baron Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I partly agree with the hon. Gentleman. He makes very clear, as I have, the atrocities that Assad has inflicted. That is why we believe there is no long-term place for his involvement. What has happened is the recognition that there needs to be a very clear transition process. We should not just be talking about Assad. Assad and his cohorts—his family and so forth—have a firm grip on the top of the regime. It is simply not possible to remove the individual man and then assume that life can move on; it is far more complex than that, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware.

We should also recognise—though this is no excuse for Russia’s behaviour—that Russia has had a long-term interest in the country since 1946, when it started to train the new Syrian army after Syria gained its independence. Syria backed the Soviets during the cold war. Assad’s father trained as a MiG pilot in Russia. There is a bond between the country that we cannot ignore, and that is why Russia is there, but we need it to use its influence in a positive way. We need Russia to recognise the damage Assad has done and the fact that the people of Syria deserve better than this. When I say “the people of Syria”, I mean all of Syria, not just one particular grouping or sectarian area.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

The Government have placed great importance on the need for the 70,000 moderates they estimate are taking on Assad to swing round and take the ground battle to Daesh, given that we all accept that airstrikes alone will not succeed against Daesh and it is becoming increasingly evident that there are already too many aircraft chasing too few targets. What progress is being made with those plans, and are the Government still convinced that there are 70,000 moderates left?

[Mr Ellwood]

The point about the 70,000 moderates has been raised before. The figure is an estimate. We should understand that this is a very divided group of people who have been standing up to Assad since the Arab spring. They are the pockets of resistance that had a choice, when Assad started to bomb and kill his own people, either to go extremist—to go fundamentalist—or to say, “No, I want something different. I do not want to be part of the Ba’ath party in the future; I want the freedoms that I am seeing develop in other parts of the Arab world.” They are disparate. They are in Aleppo in the north, through to Idlib, through to parts of Damascus, and down to Daraa in the south. Those pockets of people have stood up, and they have now come together by participating in the Geneva talks that are taking place thanks to the leadership of Saudi Arabia. So yes, they are not united in the sense that we would like them to be, but we are moving forward, and they now need to be part of the process that works out what the country looks like post-Assad.