Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the steps taken by the interim Syrian regime on (a) the (i) identification and (ii) the safe disposal of chemical weapons and (b) the protection of the rights of minorities since December 2024.

The UK welcomes the Syrian Government's commitment to ridding Syria of the Assad regime's chemical weapons. We continue to engage the Syrian Government to support their efforts to locate, secure and destroy chemical weapons left by the Assad regime. The UK has committed over £2.8 million to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to support the OPCW's verification of the destruction of chemical weapons in Syria.

The UK welcomes efforts by the Syrian Government to protect the rights of all Syrians, regardless of religious or ethnic background. This includes their investigations into outbreaks of sectarian violence in coastal areas and Suwayda, and their facilitation of the UN to investigate human rights violations. We will continue to judge the Syrian Government on its actions not its words.