Iran and Syria

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

To be clear on the six countries, I have said that they presented the same united position to Iran. I pointed out that they are entitled to put forward their views and amendments and so on, but the end product was that all six countries put the same united position to Iran. It is important that the House bears that in mind.

My hon. Friend’s points on a Geneva II conference on Syria illustrate the formidable difficulty of bringing such a conference together. That difficulty is widely acknowledged. It would be unrealistic to expect that the parties to the conflict will arrive at Geneva II stating similar positions. The regime will of course say that approaching negotiations does not imply that President Assad will go, and the opposition, when their people are suffering so much at the hands of Assad, will of course say that, in a transition by mutual consent, he will have to go. It would be absolutely astonishing if either said anything different from that.

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the Foreign Secretary and E3 plus 3 Foreign Ministers on getting Iran to the negotiating table and on getting as far as they have, but would it not have been better to get the E3 plus 3 together before meeting the Iranians to get a united position, rather than letting the Iranians negotiate differences between the six countries and ending up with the failure in discussions that we currently face?

[Mr Hague]

The E3 plus 3 meets regularly. The round of negotiations that we have just had is the third one in the past month. We also met as Ministers in New York. When there are new developments in proposals on the table, they must be discussed. As I have said, the E3 plus 3 is six sovereign nations, so of course there must be such discussions, but the end product of this weekend’s negotiations was that all six nations put the identical deal to Iran. When one considers that that includes Russia, China, America and the three European countries—we have put forward an identical position—one concludes that it is a remarkable degree of international unity. We should see it that way around.