Iran and Syria

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I do envisage such a conference taking place. I did not mention that in my statement because there were many new things to report, but we have often discussed it in the House. We argued that there should be such a conference during the non-proliferation treaty review in 2010. There has been a small amount of progress in preparing the way for that in the past couple of weeks. I hope that we will have more to say about it in the next month or so.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend’s position on Iran and wish him well on that. I also congratulate him on the work in Lebanon and Jordan. What discussions has he had with Foreign Minister Lavrov about the peace process? Where do the Russians stand on the pre-conditions that we have set out for the ultimate goal of that process?

[Mr Hague]

I have had many discussions with Foreign Minister Lavrov. The Foreign Ministers of all five permanent members of the Security Council, including Russia, agreed in New York at the end of September to use our best efforts to bring a Geneva II peace conference together. As the House has heard, we are working hard on our side of that agreement to bring the opposition, the national coalition, to Geneva. We look to Russia to use its influence to bring the Assad regime there on the same basis, which is to work from the Geneva I communiqué. That involves a transitional authority formed by mutual consent.