Iran and Syria

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

There is no obligation on the Foreign Secretary to have a guess, especially as the statement is about Iran and Syria, so the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell), even by his own standards, has been exceptionally cheeky.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The Foreign Secretary has expressed a determination to see a direct role for women’s groups in Syrian peace talks and has stated that he will work with others to support such participation if it can be realised. Is he encouraged about the prospects, and how is the Syrian National Coalition responding to his encouragement to include women in its delegation?

[Mr Hague]

I am encouraged by some of the response, and I pay tribute to the work already done by the Government of the Netherlands to push this idea; we will work closely with them. I think that there is a lot of support for this at the UN, and we will be very determined about it, so yes I am encouraged by some of the initial reaction. Now that the Syrian National Coalition has made its decision in principle about attendance at the Geneva II talks, we will start going into these sorts of issues in more detail with it.