Middle East Peace Process/Syria and Iran

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is a very important issue, and it is important that it is pursued by this country and many others over the coming months and years. There is a reference to accountability in the resolution, but as I said to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), we would have preferred much more detail on reference to the International Criminal Court. It is something to which we will have to return, therefore, in the context of a settlement, if one can be arrived at, in the Geneva II process, and something to which the Syrian people will want to return.

In my view, there must be, in the future, either national or international accountability and justice in respect of crimes committed. Some of those relate to chemical weapons, of course, but terrible crimes have been committed with a whole range of weapons, including in the prisons and torture chambers of the Assad regime. Furthermore, of course, there are records of atrocities committed by opponents of the regime as well. Justice should be done for all these crimes, but it will have to be addressed in a peace settlement, given that we cannot agree on it at the Security Council.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend recall that in August many people, not least the Government of Syria, refused to admit that the Syrian regime possessed chemical weapons, and does he agree that had it not been for the actions of the United States, the United Kingdom and others in making it clear that the use of chemical weapons was wholly unacceptable in international law and in putting forward a credible threat of military action, we would never have had UN resolution 2118, we would not now be seeing the inspection of chemical weapons in Syria and we would not be about to see the destruction of those chemical weapons—weapons that, amazingly, people did not think existed as recently as August?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is quite right to say that we are now seeing the commencement of the destruction of weapons that we were told not long ago did not exist at all. That is certainly progress and reflects a major change in policy by Russia and the Syrian regime in Damascus, and there can be little doubt that those changes would not have come about had there not been a rigorous debate about military action in many other countries.