Counter-Daesh Update

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

Yes, indeed. The Abadi Government are representative of all parts of Iraq. Abadi himself is a Shi’a; the President of Iraq, whom I met, is a Kurd; and my opposite number, the Defence Minister, is a Sunni. They are a genuinely representative Government, but they have work to do to provide reassurance, particularly to the Sunni populations and tribes of Nineveh and Anbar provinces in the west, that they too have a stake in modern Iraq and must feel part of it, and that they will be protected from any kind of Shi’a aggression such as they have suffered from in the past. The Government are representative and have lasted longer than some critics originally suggested they would, but they now have a huge amount of work to do to stabilise the areas that have been liberated and promote genuine political reconciliation.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State referred twice to Staffan de Mistura’s negotiations in Geneva, but he did not mention the Russian-Turkish-Iranian initiative and the meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan. What is the British Government’s assessment of the role of that process and the fact that it seems to be undermining efforts in Geneva?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

We support any genuine efforts to reduce violence in Syria and bring the civil war to an end, but we cannot endorse the Astana process for a number of reasons, principally because of the status it gives Iran as a guarantor of Syria’s future. That is not acceptable. We want the pluralist type of governance in Syria that we now have in Iraq, and that does not require further interference from Iran.