Syria

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord is right that the make-up of the opposition is incredibly complex. We have been working with the national coalition, which has now been recognised as the voice for the opposition by a large number of member states—most of our allies, including most of the Arab world and the Arab League. Therefore, it is the national coalition that we are working with and which we expect will represent the opposition at the Geneva II process.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, in view of the developments since this House and the House of Commons last met, would the Minister reflect that perhaps the House of Commons and many in the House of Lords displayed a degree of wisdom that may have been greater than the Government thought at that time? In view of that, will the Minister assure us that there will be no preconditions from the British Government to any talks about a future settlement, particularly when we bear in mind that, however awful the devil we know in Syria, there are a number of devils around that may ultimately be even worse, both locally and of a strategic nature?

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord raises an important point but I need to be clear on this issue. There are two parts to what has been discussed over recent months, on the political track. The Government have always been clear that the matter will be resolved politically, but the specific incident relating to chemical weapons and on which the will of Parliament was listened to was a separate situation. Noble Lords would accept and agree that the Assad regime’s now voluntary destruction of deadly weapons in the form of chemical weapons is an important step that has vindicated the threat of military action by the United States. We would not be in this position if the Assad regime did not anticipate that some military action would be taken.