Syria and the Middle East

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for initiating this very important debate and for doing so with such concise clarity. I remind the House that I am the joint chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Iran Freedom and that in a professional capacity as a lawyer I have advised on connected matters. I am aware that a lawyer stepping into a foreign policy debate may be about as welcome as the converse in your Lordships’ House. Nevertheless, I want to raise some issues on Syria, Iran and Iraq, following on from the comments just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, with whom I agree.

As far as Syria is concerned, as I was thinking about this debate I reflected on Syrians I have known in my life. They have been almost entirely clever, enlightened and resourceful people. Then I reflected on the experience of one of my daughters of being in the sixth form at a school in central London with a popular and very able young student of Syrian origins who is in fact now the wife of President Assad. So some of these issues of Syria come very close to our own experience and they are a shock to us as well. It is indeed shocking that a country full of great history and future potential should be ripped apart by the events that we observe daily. The outrages of the Assad Government are there for us all to see and wholly unjustified. However, we must be careful what we wish for.

My noble friend Lord Howell illustrated the complexity of the political situation in Syria. The rise of heretical, violent jihadism there, clearly financed and fuelled by the Government of Iran, presents a real danger if there is to be regime change in Syria at some point in the future. I also agree with what was said earlier: it is not for us or for the Americans to determine what sort of regime they have if there is a change in Syria, because our models are not necessarily suitable for them, and I agree entirely with the realism expressed earlier by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, on that subject.

It is, of course, in the end for the people of Syria to determine what Government they have, but whatever enabling we do must be aimed at increasing the prospects of sound, enduring government—not necessarily a western model—preferably secular but, above all, pluralist and with a secure and internationally compliant legal system. We all want to welcome Syria after a very long time back into the family of nations with whom we can walk together, whether in the United Nations or elsewhere.

I turn next to Iran. Of course, I support, as I suspect everybody in this House supports, the attempts to negotiate and negate the threat of Iranian nuclear ambition. I share the assessment of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, on the importance of that process. I agree with my noble friend Lord Lamont that it is important that there should be business contacts, and they should be legitimate and carefully scrutinised. Equally legitimate and important are sanctions where there are appalling human rights breaches. Although other countries in the world have similar levels of breaches of human rights, few countries with the civilised traditions of Iran have such a high level of human rights breaches. We see these breaches daily. More than 600 executions have taken place in Iran in the past six months, most of them in public—hanging people from cranes. Many of them have not committed criminal offences that we would recognise. Some of them are merely political dissidents. As recently as last Wednesday we heard an announcement by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Iran that appeared to commend cutting off one hand and one foot of a prisoner. Surely those are practices that we not only condemn and abhor; they should feature in our negotiations with Iran if there is to be any genuineness in that process.

Nor should we allow the impression that President Rouhani is some kind of Iranian Gorbachev—a view that I believe is gathering credence. He is not. His personal history as head of the security apparatus over many years belies that assertion and the conduct of his Government does not support that proposition. Can the Minister assure the House that the strongest possible representations are being made to the Government of Iran that these human rights abuses are not acceptable and that one cannot simply look at the nuclear issue on its own? If Iran is to be accepted into the family of nations, to which I referred earlier, those human rights abuses have to be dealt with. My noble friend Lord Lamont referred to the large number of American PhDs in the Iranian Government. Even American PhDs allow one to understand that hanging people in public from cranes for non-criminal offences is simply not acceptable in a country that is negotiating with the western world.

Finally, I turn to Iraq, particularly to the residents of Camp Liberty, and formerly of Camp Ashraf, as mentioned earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner. There are Iranian dissidents in refuge in Camp Liberty in Iraq. They are persecuted daily. This week they have been refused access by officials of the Iraqi Government to medically prescribed therapy. In the past they have been refused access to communications; they have been refused access to water; they have had their defensive walls removed from around their premises; there have been more than 150 assassinations there; and they have been unprotected by the Iraqi Government. One well understands the difficulty that the Iraqi Government face in relation to terrorism in that country, but it is absolutely clear that Prime Minister al-Maliki for this purpose is a client of the Government and regime of Iran. That is why the residents of Camp Liberty are not being protected.

They do not want to stay there; they wish to go elsewhere. I have been to Albania to meet some of them because Albania has allowed some 200 former Camp Ashraf residents to settle there. I have heard genuine and moving testimonies from individuals. Most of them are middle-class business and professional people, not firebrand revolutionaries. Quite a few of them are old. They need to be treated on a humanitarian basis. We are not treating them that way at the moment, nor are many other countries. It is ironic that Albania is doing so; it is one of those Governments that are treated with a good deal of disdain by the Governments of the European Union. The residents have a complete lack of protection. They are supposedly being looked after, to an extent, by the United Nations, but United Nations officials—like Macavity—are never there when critical events occur. As a result, a humanitarian scandal has erupted.

I urge the Minister to declare very clearly to this House this afternoon that the United Kingdom is in the forefront of international efforts to save the lives of the residents of Camp Liberty and to give them a safe haven elsewhere. I believe that Prime Minister Maliki does not wish to remain a client of the Government of Iran but he needs an awful lot of help if he is to be able to separate himself from the wishes of that Government. If the Iranian regime has any interest in persuading us of its earnest in meeting our concerns over nuclear and other issues, surely the small question, in quantum terms, of the residents of Camp Liberty is one on which they could demonstrate their earnest at no risk to themselves and gain the respect of the rest of the world for their change and their humanitarian approach. I ask our Government to use every effort to ensure that those unfortunate people are protected.