Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps the UK is taking as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to put pressure on the Syrian regime to disclose the fates of disappeared civilians.

On 15 March we raised the plight of detainees held by the Asad regime, affiliated militias and proscribed terrorist organisations at the UN Security Council. We are also showing leadership at the Human Rights Council, where this month we are hosting a side event to discuss next steps for accountability. We have provided over £1m in funding to the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) since 2019 to support Syrian families of the missing to secure their rights to justice, truth and reparations. We wholly support ICMP as the holder of an impartial database of all those who have gone missing, regardless of their origin, role in the conflict, or the circumstances of their disappearance.

We support the UN's request to the Asad regime and Syrian armed groups to allow humanitarian actors and medical teams unhindered access to prisons and expect all parties to the Syrian conflict to respect their obligations and responsibilities towards civilians under the applicable international law regimes that apply, including international humanitarian law. Additionally we continue to pursue sanctions as a policy tool to hold the Syrian regime to account and to bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict.