Iran and Syria

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Iran’s supposed rapprochement with the international community could be nothing but a ruse to give it diplomatic cover to buy more time to complete a nuclear warhead. The ultimate test of any agreement, whether an interim agreement or a complete agreement, is whether the Israelis and the Saudi Arabians believe it. If the Israelis do not, they will contemplate a military strike; and if the Saudi Arabians do not, they will buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan. What can the Foreign Secretary tell the House to give us the confidence that this is not a ruse by Iran?

[Mr Hague]

We should never be surprised by scepticism about Iran’s intentions. Indeed, we should often share a good deal of that scepticism, given its past record of concealment of large aspects of its nuclear programme and its defiance of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Security Council. We should always have a great deal of sympathy with such scepticism, but our answer has to be that we will be able to make a deal—a first step deal—with Iran provided that there is real substance: if concrete actions are taken, those actions are visible and verified, and their absence cannot be concealed from the international community. We would then have a deal in which we could have confidence and which we could recommend to other countries, including Israel and the Gulf states.