Oral Answers to Questions

Kwasi Kwarteng Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that he needs to acknowledge that there are limits to the leverage that the UK alone and the EU collectively have with Russia. However, we always ensure, both bilaterally and in European conversations, that the central importance of human rights and respect for democratic processes is brought home to our Russian interlocutors.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

7. What discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on the situation in Syria; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

I discuss Syria regularly with EU colleagues. At the March Foreign Affairs Council, we condemned the violence of Assad’s regime and supported Kofi Annan’s six-point plan. We agreed to adopt further sanctions, including an asset freeze on two Syrian petroleum companies.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for his answer. What role does he envisage for the Security Council in the ongoing crisis in Syria?

[Mr Hague]

The Security Council has, I am glad to say, at last agreed a Security Council resolution. It did so on Saturday and I pay tribute to our mission at the United Nations in New York for the way in which it helped to achieve that. This resolution embodies the Kofi Annan plan, but it also sets out very clearly how the role of the monitors for the ceasefire that has now, at least partly, come into effect in Syria, should be regarded, in terms of giving them access to where they need to go and to people they need to talk to. For the first time the Security Council has passed a resolution uniting all the members of the Security Council, against which the Assad regime and its behaviour can now be judged.