Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-09-11-Speech-2-616-000"
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"Mr President, let me begin by making something very clear. We are not doing nothing. I think sometimes some honourable Members have the mistaken idea that if you have a military activity, that is action, and that somehow diplomatic activity is not. On behalf of the tireless work that our delegation does every day in Damascus in Syria, and in the United Nations and elsewhere, I must ask them to remember the efforts they make.
That is what we have to build on and that is what we have to support, and to do it in a way that we believe can be effective. We have worked really hard with the Security Council Members. I spent eleven hours in Geneva talking with members of the Security Council and others to try and get the Geneva discussion to bring in everyone. I work hard in the core group of the Friends of Syria. We attend and discuss many meetings all the time to try and find a way through this. We are not inactive. The European Union is respected for what we try to do in supporting the people of Syria and trying to find a way through this incredibly difficult challenge.
Frankly, honourable Members, if it was easy to find a solution to this, we would have done so already. It is not hiding under a cushion somewhere; it is amazingly difficult. People across the world are trying to engage and find that solution. So, before we leap to the conclusion that unless you have military activity you are inactive, let us really consider what we mean by that. Let us really consider the implications of the big words translated into action on the ground and start thinking properly and comprehensively about what we do, including in the days after.
Because if we do not start preparing for that now – and the State Department are right to prepare for it – we will not be ready for what could be a situation which crumbles very quickly and where we will have to be ready with assets to move in, to support people in all the places we have been unable to reach. To get the infrastructure working and to get people into a future is going to need an enormous amount of effort. If we do not get the planning done for that now, we will not be in a position to help people. So I encourage you to support the US and us and everybody else in doing so.
Honourable Members, I hope I have given you a sense of the passion I feel about this issue. I take my responsibilities seriously, but we have to find solutions which we know are going to work, that we can engage with members of the international community to achieve and, most of all, that we believe will bring peace as quickly as possible and not an escalation of violence.
I paid tribute to our Head of Delegation for Syria at the Heads of Delegation Conference because I know how much he does and the challenges and risks he has to take. It would be wrong of this House not to recognise those activities. We are not doing nothing. There is a huge amount going on. What I tried to point out were the areas of activity where we have been able to show real progress.
Honourable Members will appreciate that we have looked at every single idea that they have put forward – and many others. There are people in Brussels and across the European Union – military experts and others – who look at every possible way in which we could engage with Syria. They also look at the way in which we have engaged historically and they look at the political needs that we have in so doing.
Syria is not Libya and you should not mix them up. They are completely different in every possible way and we have to recognise that. A Security Council resolution led the way in Libya. We knew that a no-fly zone was a military action. It is not a benign activity. It is something you do using military assets. If you move in and decide you are going to take military action, you have to recognise the size and scale of what is being asked and ask how to do that, what one can be sure about when one goes in and how many countries are willing to put young men and women on the line to do that.
I believe a political solution is what we have to work towards. The situation on the ground is very difficult. Yes, there are Jihad fighters. Yes, there are people from different groups on the ground. No, it is not our fault that they are there, but yes, it is true. The situation has become more difficult and more confused, and because we cannot get the Opposition groups to come together with a coherent and comprehensive view of what the transition would be in support of all the people, it is even more difficult to establish a way in which we can do this, but we have to keep trying and we do.
Every single day we work on these issues, every single day we work with the neighbouring countries. Every single day we work with the Security Council members. Every day we work with our delegation on the ground, with the international NGOs and with the Red Cross and others. Do not accuse us of inactivity please.
In terms of what I think you want to see happen, I understand your frustrations. I really do. I understand the passion. I share it. It is a horrendous situation, but we have to be careful and clear about what we can do to engage with it. When I met with the 27 Foreign Ministers, that is what we talked about. We talked about all the possibilities. We talked about what we felt we could do and we came to the conclusions that you have seen in the Council conclusions.
Let me just add, by the way, the reason for the Council conclusion on getting Member States to check what is going through their countries is precisely because this Parliament asked us to. That is why we did it. Now I find, perhaps, that that has not been accepted for what it was. But it was you who asked us, and I did it, and that is why it matters that we continue to insist that Member States ensure that what is going through their ports is checked whenever they have reason to believe it is necessary.
It is also why we continue to look for more sanctions that we can place on the regime, not least to send the strongest and clearest message to everyone else that we want to see Assad go and we want to see a solution inclusive of the people of Syria, and born of the people of Syria, that will help them get the kind of society that we think most people want, because the truth is most people in Syria want Assad to go and want a solution."@en1
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