PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Syria: Security Situation - 24 February 2020 (Commons/Commons Chamber)
Debate Detail
Nearly 300 civilians have been killed in Idlib and Aleppo since 1 January this year. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has confirmed that 93% of those deaths were caused by the regime and its allies. International humanitarian law continues to be ignored, with civilian infrastructure being hit probably as a result of active targeting. As recently as yesterday, the White Helmets reported that Russian warplanes hit a children’s and women’s hospital in the village of Balioun in Idlib.
The UK has condemned, and continues to condemn, these flagrant violations of international law and basic human decency. Following UK lobbying, in August 2019 the UN Secretary-General announced a board of inquiry into attacks on civilian infrastructure supported by the UN or that were part of the UN deconfliction mechanism, which we continue to support. We look forward to the publication of the results as soon as possible.
We have repeatedly pressed—including at the UN Security Council—for an immediate, genuine and lasting ceasefire. We have called a number of emergency council sessions on Idlib in New York, most recently on 6 February alongside the P3, where the UK ambassador to the UN, Karen Pierce, reiterated our clear call for a ceasefire and our support for Turkey’s efforts in the region. There is overwhelming support for that in the Security Council, and we regret very much that the Russians continue to obstruct the possibility of agreement.
As the Foreign Secretary noted on 31 January this year, only a political settlement in line with UN Security Council resolution 2254 can deliver a lasting peace for Syria. The UK will continue to support the efforts of the UN special representative for Syria, Geir Pedersen, to that end. We regret that the Syrian regime continues to stall the process, despite the cost to the Syrian people and the loss of Syrian lives.
Despite this political obstruction, the UK remains an active leader in the humanitarian space. In the financial year 2019-20, the Department for International Development has allocated £118 million to projects implemented by organisations delivering cross-border aid, primarily into north-west Syria, including into Idlib. This has helped to provide hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people with food, clean water, shelter and healthcare, including psychosocial support.
We have provided funding to response partners, including the UN, to pre-position essential supplies to support innocent families and civilians displaced by conflict and are supporting all our partners to respond to this humanitarian crisis.
For almost a decade, we have seen the terrible events unfold in Syria and have occasionally offered a limited response to Assad’s barbarism, but since August 2013, the west has taken a strategic back seat.
I welcome the Minister to his place. He and I attended the Munich security conference. I hope that, next year, we will have a larger British contingent. The theme at that conference was the failure of the western project. It was an admission of the loss of common understanding of what it means to be part of the west—what we believe in, what we defend, and what we fight for. Nowhere is that more applicable than in what is happening in Syria, where Russian-backed Syrian forces, as has been outlined, continue to adopt the same brutal tactics that we saw in Homs, in Hama and in Aleppo, causing so much misery to millions. The latest escalation has seen almost a million people displaced, including women and children.
As we saw in the reports on Sky News over the weekend, Assad continues his advance, deliberately bombing hospitals and causing infants to freeze in the cold winter. Yet again, attempts by the UN Security Council to secure a ceasefire are vetoed by Russia. The prospect of a bloodbath grows higher, as does that of a direct conflict between Turkey and Syria. The words come again from the west, but we continue to watch on.
May I ask the Minister to please answer these questions? Given the UK’s P5 status, what is our role? Has Turkey, a NATO ally, requested any support? Indeed, has any been offered, such as introducing a no-fly zone to prevent helicopters from dropping barrel bombs? There is talk of a summit on 5 March. Is Britain even invited to that? What discussions has he had with our European partners, particularly on what options we can consider that bypass a stagnant United Nations? Does he now agree that the west’s inability to commit to any post-military phase after the counter-Daesh offensive has actually given Russia greater autonomy in shaping Syrian events?
On the growing influence and power of Russia, does the Minister share my concerns that the UN will go the way of the League of Nations if its ability to adjudicate internationally is not repaired? Finally, is he not concerned that the west’s growing reputation for hesitating is giving ever greater influence and confidence to non-western alliances to pursue their own agendas, as they know that the west is likely to respond only with words?
We will soon celebrate the 75th anniversary of victory in Europe, reflecting on a time when Britain did not flinch from its international duty and from stepping forward when other nations hesitated. If global Britain is to mean anything in this dangerous and complex world, now is the time to show it.
My right hon. Friend mentioned the history—the League of Nations. On Russia’s veto at the United Nations, there is of course countervailing pressure. It is better to have as wide representation at the United Nations as possible. The veto is part of the mechanisms put in place in 1945 at the creation of the UN to ensure that as many people as possible could be around the table, but I do not think that anyone at the time envisaged the veto being used to protect regimes such as Assad’s, which has been regularly targeting civilians and their infrastructure.
The United Kingdom is part of the small group on Syria, which includes Egypt, France, Germany, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United States of America. It is particularly important that Arab nations be represented on that small group that discusses the situation in Syria. There is a challenge, of course, in balancing the UK taking what my right hon. Friend might describe as a more active role, and the need for a sustainable solution that is agreed both by the protagonists in the region and by the surrounding nations, but we are certainly making sure that the UK voice is heard on the international stage, and that our actions are felt on the ground, particularly on the humanitarian front. Since 2011, we have been one of the largest bilateral donors, and we remain at the forefront of the humanitarian response. To date, we have committed £3.1 billion in response to the Syria crisis—our largest response to any single humanitarian crisis.
The UK is, and will remain, a powerful and passionate voice calling internationally for a ceasefire and the de-escalation of conflict in the region, both at the UN and through the small group on Syria.
What is happening today in Idlib fills us all with horror and dismay, but it should also fill us with frustration, because it was clear that this stage of the conflict was coming. Seventeen months ago, in response to another urgent question, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), the shadow Foreign Secretary, warned us of
“the terrible bloodshed and humanitarian crisis that is looming in Idlib,”
and spoke of
“the urgency for all sides to work to find some form of peaceful political solution to avert it”—[Official Report, 10 September 2018; Vol. 646, c. 466.]
We have not seen that urgency from the international community, and now we see all the terrible consequences of that. Hundreds of thousands are being forced to flee their home; innocent civilians are being targeted by Assad’s airstrikes; there is indiscriminate bombing of jihadist-held towns and cities; and Turkey is being drawn ever deeper into the conflict—the number of its casualties continues to rise. Those are just the immediate consequences.
What does the Minister expect to happen once the Syrian Government forces are in full control over Idlib? Does he expect, as many analysts do, that the jihadists of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham will give up on their campaign of territorial control and open battles and instead commit to a long-term campaign of terrorist insurgency and guerrilla warfare? How will he and the international allies respond to that development? What action has been taken on an international level to respond to the fresh humanitarian crisis in Syria, and to ensure that the innocent civilians fleeing for their lives and from the regime’s onslaught on Idlib at least have some safety and shelter to flee towards?
With regard to what we are doing specifically in response to the humanitarian crisis, as I said, we have already committed £3.1 billion to this. Since 2012, across Syria and the region, we have provided over 28 million food rations, over 18 million medical consultations and over 12 million vaccinations. Our aid provides life-saving support to millions of Syrians, supporting refugees to remain in the countries in the region, and enabling the host communities to accommodate them. I think there is almost certainly unanimity across the House that we need a ceasefire and de-escalation, and for the regime forces, backed by the Russians, to stop targeting civilians so that a sustainable political response can be negotiated. That remains our position, and that is what we will continue pushing for on the international stage.
We respect and support Turkey’s position. We hope that the language that we have heard recently from both Turkey and Syria about a further escalation of conflict does not come to pass, and that not only will we have our enduring commitment to humanitarian support, but we will push at UN and other levels for an international response that sees a sustainable, peaceful future for the people of Syria. But the first thing that has to happen is that the violence has to stop.
“protected by a Russian veto”
and called on Russia to
“end its support for this murderous campaign and the barbaric Syrian Government.”
Russia’s indifference to human life and to its obligation to protect it must be challenged directly. Will the Secretary of State respond to calls from my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who called on the UK Government in his letter on 21 February and in this Chamber on 12 February to put pressure to establish a humanitarian corridor? We need deeds, not words.
When the Minister describes the United Kingdom as
“an active leader in the humanitarian space”
in relation to Syria, does he understand how that sounds to the Syrian diaspora, whose suffering we have discussed so many times in this House? As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood) put it, we knew that this was going to happen, and in that sense, we in this House are all complicit in what is going on in Syria. Every time a Minister comes to the Dispatch Box with nothing new to say and only regret, it is brutal for the people in Syria who right now are freezing as bombs fall on children’s heads. Has the Minister asked the United Nations Secretary-General to go to Idlib himself, to show leadership on behalf of the world? If we can do nothing else in this country, can we not take in some more Syrian refugees?
While I completely understand the hon. Member’s passion for the UK to take in more refugees, the simple truth is that the numbers of displaced people in the regime would be impossible for the UK to host, and that that would not be a credible response to this situation. The UK is working and will continue to work at the international level to de-escalate the situation in Syria, and we will continue to help refugees in the region, as I say, in one of the largest humanitarian efforts this country has made.
I did not get the chance to speak with German representatives specifically on the issue that my right hon. Friend has brought up, but I did speak with a number of European colleagues while at the Munich conference. We will ensure that the UK continues to play an active and engaged part within the international community both to de-escalate and, ideally, to stop the conflict in the region, and to build a sustainable, peaceful future for the Syrian people.
Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.