Syria

Lord Gordon of Strathblane Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

We have as a Government been active in our endeavours to support the provision of humanitarian aid. The noble Lord will be aware of the very extensive resource that has been allocated to that by the United Kingdom Government. We are in a sensitive and delicate period. The unanimous hope is that the ceasefire will work and continue. That is necessary to allow some form of planning for what might then be possible. I say to the noble Lord that an important component of the agreement achieved between the United States and Russia is that humanitarian access is provided, and the regime in particular has been forcefully reminded of the need to co-operate in that endeavour.

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)]

My Lords, with regard to the ultimate political solution that the Minister referred to in her first Answer, it is only appropriate to regard the leadership and governance of Syria as a matter entirely for the Syrian people, and therefore to ignore the calls for President Assad’s removal as a precondition for negotiations that one occasionally hears from Saudi Arabia, and indeed to some extent the United States, just as one hears opposition to that from Iran and the Soviet Union.