Iran and Syria

Andrew Love Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We must take into account the concerns of other nations. That does not mean that we will always agree, but we must take them into account. We must be able to assure them that any deal is worth while and will achieve its objectives—we have to be confident of that. Any deal has to be detailed and extensive and has to cover all aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme, so that such concerns can be satisfied.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Foreign Secretary tells the House that it is unrealistic to believe that we can convene a Geneva II conference on Syria on any basis other than the Geneva I communiqué, yet many hon. Members on both sides of the House believe that it is even more unrealistic to try to base it on that wording for the reasons that we have discussed this afternoon. The situation in Syria is getting worse and the polarisation of both sides is intensifying. Is it therefore not incumbent on the British Government and the international community to do everything that they can to bring the parties together for a peace conference?

[Mr Hague]

That is incumbent on us and the rest of the Security Council, and I hope the hon. Gentleman has gathered from my remarks that we are doing that. That was the purpose of assembling the Friends of Syria group here and of all our work in recent weeks with the Syrian National Coalition. However, when he questions whether the basis of Geneva II should be the Geneva I communiqué, I have to tell him that if we did not have that as our starting point we would lack any common baseline. We would be going well back in our negotiation of a peace in Syria. The communiqué was agreed by Russia, as well as by the UK and the United States. At various stages, even the Assad regime said that it supported it, although that has not always been clear. If that cannot be the basis for peace negotiations, we would struggle to assemble any alternative. It is therefore important that we try to build on the Geneva I communiqué.