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Middle East

My Lords, as I and, I think, others will have anticipated, this has been a debate of many points of view and many insights, drawn on your Lordships’ colossal experience of dealing with the enormous range of countries that we have covered. I hope that I shall be forgiven straight away if I do not cover satisfactorily all these nations with their situations of change and tumult, but time is the limiting factor. It was the noble Lord, Lord Williams—who obviously spoke with unique experience in the light of his past employments—who called Syria the eye of the storm. He brought home the ghastly complexity of the issue there and made a grim but, I hope, a realistic comparison with the endless tangles in Bosnia, which took years to unravel. I hope that in a sense his pessimism is wrong when he speaks about the years that it will take for us to see settlement in Syria, but we have to be realistic and he may of course be right. Many other noble Lords spoke on that issue and I shall try to divide the 20 minutes that I have into commenting mainly on Syria, Iran and the Middle East peace process, and I shall also answer a range of detailed questions from my noble friend Lord Avebury and others. I shall see whether I can get that all in. The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, in a very well informed speech, asked whether we were liaising with the Arab League. The answer is yes. On Syria, the Friends of Syria mechanism, which has met already and meets next, I think, in Istanbul, is an opportunity for constant dialogue—not merely liaising—with the Arab League about its position. Of course, there are some differences of emphasis within the league, as we know, between those in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who are more forward in suggesting direct help for the opposition groups, and others who are not so certain. We want the Arab League to formulate its views clearly, and we are working with it at every point to address the issue. It would be incredible if I said that any of us could see exactly how the Syrian scene will work out. Atrocities have been committed that have appalled everybody; the refugee problem is crowding in at the Turkish border, with talk of mines being laid by the Syrian armed forces; it is clear that Iran is helping to import weapons to support the official Syrian army; and it is absolutely clear from the vivid reports of the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, and others that Baba Amr and other places have been utterly flattened and destroyed in a pattern that is unforgivable. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, rightly asked about the position of those who have committed atrocities, and about possible charges in the ICC. I must be careful in the precise words I use to answer him because there are legal constraints. However, as I told your Lordships the other day, we certainly would not rule out referral to the ICC, as suggested by Mrs Pillay. The COI report does not specifically recommend such a referral; nor does the Human Rights Council have the power to refer cases. It would be for the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC prosecutor. I am told—this is in addition to the point that I made the other day—that it could take anything up to a year before this is clarified. I have not much to add about the grimness of the situation in Syria. Many excellent and wise points were made by noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, and the noble Lords, Lord Wright and Lord Chidgey, all spoke about it, and I will not add anything at this stage. I turn now to Iran. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said that it was the great shadow over the area, and of course it is. The universal opinion that clearly comes from almost all sides of this debate is that if we reach the stage of bombing and violence it will be a failure of policy. All options remain on the table; we must be realistic. We have a twin-track policy of putting considerable pressure on Iran through financial measures, including the withdrawal of SWIFT facilities that was reported in the press today and was referred to by one noble Lord. We also have in place the oil embargo, which has its problems but is clearly closing in on Iran. That is the pressure side of the track. The other part of the track is that there must be engagement and talks. Iran has said that it will come back to talks. The noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, who has taken a very forward and skilled lead in dealing with the matter on behalf of the EU3+3 and the western powers, is negotiating on the timing of a meeting. We can all see the danger; this could be a trap. There could be a lot of talk and meanwhile Iran would plunge ahead with its weaponisation, which would lead to a cascade of proliferation in the whole region and potential disasters of almost unimaginable proportions. That must be prevented. That is our twin track. Firing missiles at Iran would be regrettable at any stage; but as the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, said, doing so now would definitely be the wrong course. The debate about whether Israel could act independently is one that we watch with great unease. We would regard it as a disaster to see any kind of unilateral action of that sort at this stage. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, asked what if, despite everything, weaponisation—not merely the capability to build nuclear weapons, but the production of them—goes ahead in Iran. This is hypothetical. It would, of course, be a statement that we had failed, but that is just the put-down answer. This is a danger. Could we go in a completely different direction as the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Hannay, mentioned? Statesmen must turn their minds towards the ideal of moving to a WMD-free or a nuclear-free zone. All international leaders have made statements saying that that is what they would like to see, but we have to be totally realistic about the difficulties and challenges that would present. I am afraid I have to say from this Dispatch Box that at the moment that lies very far away, almost in the dream category of where one could go if the present twin-track strategy, which we are determined to pursue, did not succeed. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, spoke about a different kind of win-win strategy. These are ideas that must be looked at seriously and kept on the table, but the main strategy that we are sticking to at the moment is intense pressure on Iran to bring it to the table, which is now on its way to being step one. The step beyond that is to get it to come clean on its nuclear activities at present and its nuclear military aspirations and to deter it from them. The third major category of discussion in the debate was to do with the Middle East peace process for Palestine and Israel. We all quote to each other the adage that everything in the Middle East is connected to everything else. Clearly, the peace process and some kind of progress on it, if we can discern any, if there is any hope at all, is connected with the Iran situation, the Lebanon situation and the entire balance of activity and dangers throughout the Middle East. Let me turn to the MEPP and try to answer some of the questions that were raised by a range of noble Lords. I will not name them all. We are aware that Fatah and Hamas have signed an agreement that President Abbas will become Prime Minister. It is too early to make a detailed assessment of these developments. We will continue to follow the situation on Palestinian reconciliation very closely. Any technocratic Government should be composed of figures who are committed to the principles set by Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo in May last year, who uphold the principle of non-violence, are committed to a negotiated two-state solution and accept the previous agreements of the PLA. We have made it consistently clear that we will engage any Palestinian Government who show through their words and actions that they are committed to the above principles. We welcome the effort to hold Palestinian elections this year. It will be very important that all sides work to ensure that conditions are in place for the holding of free and fair elections. I know there have been reports that Hamas has shifted its emphasis. Our policy is clear: it must renounce violence, recognise Israel and accept previously signed agreement. Hamas must make credible movement towards these conditions, which remain the benchmark by which its intentions will be judged. That is what we want to make clear on that situation. We are thankful that the Egyptians have brokered a ceasefire in the recent period of very high tensions. One should not forget that a vast range of missiles, some of very high technical capability, have been rained on Israel by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other organisations. Luckily, the Iron Dome technology of anti-missile defence by Israel seems to have prevented 90 per cent of them reaching their targets. Nevertheless, it is obviously intolerable from Israel’s point of view that that should be the challenge. Of course, it will also be said that Israel has applied its force the other way. There is always a balance and there are always two sides to these arguments. It is impossible to say anything that does not slide one way or another.