Syria

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I say to my hon. Friend that we must use every art of persuasion we know in our talks with our colleagues in Russia. I can assure him that we do that. The shadow Foreign Secretary argued earlier that we must put the case to Russia about the growth of extremism in Syria and so on—and we do. I have lost count of the number of occasions on which I and other western Foreign Ministers have put the case to our Russian counterparts that everything Russia most fears in Syria is more likely to come true the longer the conflict goes on. That includes the rise of international terrorism and instability in the whole region. The Russians clearly have a different analysis, and we have not had any meeting of minds on the issue. I have to say that I am not a great fan of sporting sanctions. As a country that has just hosted the Olympics, we have a well-established position on that, but we will use every other art of persuasion in dealing with Russia.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

The Assad regime is clearly barbarous and has to go, but does the Foreign Secretary understand the concerns of many of our constituents who raise issues about atrocities and war crimes carried out on the opposition side, about the role of al-Qaeda and about the fact that support and help going into the country for good and proper reasons set out in good faith can end up helping people who are deeply hostile to western interests and equally guilty of terrible crimes against humanity?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, of course people are right to be concerned about any atrocities and any opportunity for international terrorism to take hold in a new place. That is one reason why we cannot just turn away from this crisis. It is also why—this is the nub of the right hon. Gentleman’s question—the assistance we give must be carefully thought out and monitored. Of course, all the assistance and equipment I have talked about is non-lethal. We will monitor its use to the best of our ability, but if it were misused or fell into the hands of groups for which it was not intended, that would have a very serious impact on our willingness to provide any such further assistance in the future. I stress that while people read about the opportunity for extremists to take hold, and while we are concerned about it, as I have described, the great majority of the people, even those involved in the fighting in Syria as far as we can tell, are not extremists. The opposition leaders whom I meet are people who sincerely want a future for their country that has nothing to do with extremism and terrorism. We must not leave those people feeling abandoned by the world.