Syria

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is getting ahead of where we have reached in our policy making. We could supply arms only in carefully controlled circumstances, and with very clear commitments from the opposition side. I cannot at this stage go into what arrangements could be made—some of them would necessarily be confidential—but we would want to be able to assure the House and the country that we had confidence in any such arrangements. That is a subject that we might have to return to.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Foreign Secretary said that he was in constant contact with US Secretary of State John Kerry. As a result of those constant contacts, is he in any position to ascertain exactly the US Administration’s position? Why have they failed to act on President Obama’s so-called red line? Does the US support arming of the rebels or will it consider a no-fly zone?

[Mr Hague]

There is no mystery about the position of the United States. In public as well as in private, the US is driving the initiative put together with Russia on 8 May to have the Geneva conference. Secretary Kerry is therefore working very hard on the diplomatic side of all this work. The US is very sympathetic to any means of putting greater pressure on the regime ahead of the conference, including the European Union matters I have been talking about, while fully recognising that it is for EU states to decide on that. It is the view in America, as it is our view, that it is important for the facts on chemical weapons to be established in the eyes of the world. We have sent our evidence to the UN team, and particularly after what happened in the last decade it is important for our claims about the existence or misuse of weapons to be established, preferably by the United Nations.