Foreign Affairs Committee

Oral evidence: A new Syria: assessing UK strategy in a transitional state, HC 578

Monday 7 September 2026

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 7 September 2026.

Watch the meeting

Members present: Emily Thornberry (Chair); Fleur Anderson; Richard Foord; Abtisam Mohamed; Edward Morello; Emily Thornberry; Sir John Whittingdale.

Questions 1-68

Witnesses

I: Dr Reem Turkmani, Assistant Professor, London School and Economics Middle East Centre; Dr Neil Quilliam, Associate Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House.

II: Charlotte Leslie, Director of the Conservative Middle East Council; Jon Wilks, Adviser to the Syria Britain Business Centre, Associate Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House, and former Ambassador to Qatar, Iraq, Oman and Yemen and Syria Envoy.

III: H.E. Hind Kabawat, Minister of Social and Labour Affairs in the Syrian Government.

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Dr Reem Turkmani and Dr Neil Quilliam.

Q1             Chair: The Foreign Affairs Committee is beginning its formal inquiry into Syria. We are very grateful to have our witnesses before us—will you introduce yourselves?

Dr Turkmani: My name is Reem Turkmani. I am an assistant professorial fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. I run a research programme about Syria, which has been running for more than 20 years.

Dr Quilliam: I am Neil Quilliam. I am an associate fellow at Chatham House in the middle east and north Africa programme. I have run various Syria projects over the years.

Q2             Chair: As we come into the beginning of September, many of us become increasingly mindful of the 9/11 anniversary, the terrible deaths, and never forgetting the pictures of the aeroplanes going into the twin towers and the impacts on international politics. It is important for the Committee to officially mark that awful anniversary once more.

Let us move on to what has been happening to Syria. It has had a decade of conflict, huge displacement, the collapse of institutions and terrible human rights abuses. Given all that, I wonder whether our witnesses could begin by helping us to understand how much Syria may have changed recently, whether that can be seen as positive change and whether it is moving in a more democratic and inclusive direction. Dr Turkmani, do you mind beginning?

Dr Turkmani: Sure. Thank you very much. Getting rid of the Assad regime is a very positive change, and the transition, despite all the challenges, has been smoother than anticipated, but I cannot say that right now we are moving towards democratic governance. While the transition created a big power vacuum, with the overnight change, the new authorities do not have all the tools to control the public space that were there before.

We have citizens pushing for more participation, more democratic institutions and more inclusive governance, and an authority that is trying to control the space, but we have a lot of space to occupy that no one has occupied before. I want to say that there is an opportunity—an opportunity to come up with new institutions, different ones that are more accountable, in which citizens really feel that they belong. That is an area where I think external help, particularly UK help, could be very important.

I have just come back from a five-week visit to Syria. I went all around the country. It is my sixth visit since the change and I can see that security has improved, but serious concerns about security—in some areas of the country, not every part—remain. There are concerns about the economy and about the collapse of the environment, which I would like to come back to in a later intervention.

Chair: Please do, but let us hear from Dr Quilliam first.

Dr Quilliam: Basically, I echo what Reem has said. As a long-term analyst of Syria—I wrote my PhD on Syria centuries ago, and have studied the country for centuries—I find myself very much torn. That is because, as Reem said, there has been tremendous progress in the past couple of years. The country has made big strides, internationally in particular, and I think a lot of the successes—if we may use that term—have been quite surprising, so there are lots of positive stories to tell. Against that backdrop, however, as Reem described it, there is a big space that needs filling. There are lots of troubles, lots of obstacles and lots of concerns. That should not be a surprise, given that Syria has just gone through a very painful war, and it is not going to walk away in a very short space of time.

Q3             Chair: Certain obvious things are measurable, and the composition of Parliament is an obvious one. As I understand it, a third of Parliament is going to be appointed by the President. Do we have any idea of what the composition now is and how inclusive that might be? I do not think that anything is publicly available, or if there is, we have missed it.

Dr Turkmani: Having just interviewed several Members of the Parliament, let me answer that. We have 210 Members of Parliament, and one third of them were appointed by the President and one third through semi-election from a college that was selected—

Chair: What about the other third?

Dr Turkmani: One third of Members were appointed by the President and two thirds were elected. Every area had an electoral college from which to choose, so 400 or 500 people elected a certain number of people. However, if you want to look at representation, let us start with women—only 10% are women. There are also huge gaps in representing certain parts of the country, especially in the north-east, in Suweida and in other areas. However, I would not read the Parliament as—

Q4             Chair: The north-east being who?

Dr Turkmani: The Kurds particularly. They have questions and do not feel that they are part of the central institutions. Even the Kurds who are there are not seen as people who come from that area, who represent the people who chose them; rather, they are seen as people appointed by the Government to represent them.

Q5             Chair: You talked about Suweida, too; will you spell that out?

Dr Turkmani: Suweida is almost politically cut out of the Parliament and central institutions. The Government are appointing some people from a Druze background to fill this gap, but if you go to Suweida, people there will not see these people as representative.

Q6             Chair: Again, for people who are watching and may not know, Suweida is an area that is particularly dominated by Druze.

Dr Turkmani: It is absolutely dominated by Druze right now, and there is a huge rift with the central Government following the massacres in July of last year.

Q7             Chair: Are there minority groups that are well represented?

Dr Turkmani: I would not even say the majority feel represented. I have to stress that a Parliament post conflict cannot be fully representative. Even if you run elections, the results will not be really representative. The question is this: is that Parliament able to handle the transition? Does it have the tools and powers needed? The answer is no, because its power, as provisioned in the constitution, is limited. Its ability to make the Government accountable is very limited. Also, its byelaws, which have just been drafted, give a lot of power to the—

Q8             Chair: You are saying a lot there, so may I reel you back just a little? I just want to understand. I hear the criticisms, but in the Parliament itself are Christians represented? Are Alawites represented? Even if the team that has been put together cannot do as much as some people might think it should, is there a team that is widely representative of the peoples of Syria?

Dr Turkmani: There are Christians and Alawites in the new People’s Assembly. Even the deputy head of the Assembly is a lady from a Christian background. But I would not take that to say that the Alawites, for example, feel represented.

Q9             Chair: And you were saying that that institution nevertheless does not have the sort of power and authority that ideally it should do.

Dr Turkmani: Exactly. It is much better than where we were in the Assad era, when the Parliament hardly played any role. It is an improvement, but the powers, particularly the ability of the Parliament to make the Government accountable, are limited. The Members of the Parliament—I have spoken to many of them—are not exactly totally loyalist when it comes to the central Government. They are not exactly Opposition, but they are saying, “We are not there for them; we want to serve the country,” and they are willing to use the existing rules, as much as they can, to make the Government accountable and to play their role in drafting the whole new legal infrastructure that is needed for the transition.

Q10        Chair: I think we will go into this in a bit more detail, but do you mind just giving us an example of a lever that the new Parliament might have? If there is a bit of power that they might be able to exercise, what is that? You say that they have very limited powers when it comes to keeping the Government—

Dr Turkmani: They have the power to invite the members of the Government to listen to them about their plans, but there is nothing to make them accountable. But the Members of the Parliament have said they want to use those hearing sessions to press the Government. Most importantly, where they have more power is in drafting new legislation. So they want to learn more, because they still do not have the learning or the knowledge needed about how to draft new laws to ensure that we come up with accountable governance and accountable institutions that are really fit for a country under transition.

Q11        Chair: That leads us on to the next question. In what way do the Syrians want help, and in what way can Britain help? I was struck to hear that President al-Sharaa was talking about wanting to follow the Rwandan model, which was not very encouraging—I just wondered where we were. Are there things that Britain is doing or could do, or that they would want us to do? What are we talking about? I include Dr Quilliam in this.

Dr Quilliam: There are lots of areas where the UK can support. Again, to echo what Reem said, there is a Parliament that does have some capacity and has the byelaws in place, but there needs to be training and an exchange of experiences between different Parliaments to embed the institution. Generally, across the board, the institutions that have been filled—both the pre-existing ones and the new one that are being put into place—need serious and significant capacity building.

Chair: Sir John is very keen on us having joint hearings of Select Committees; perhaps we should have a joint hearing with a Syrian Select Committee.

Sir John Whittingdale: That may be a little premature.

Dr Quilliam: There is a dearth of capacity within the state institutions, and that is really where the UK can support. We can identify and talk about the different institutions, but a lot of this is new—as Reem said, what you have in terms of a Parliament is very different from what you had under Bashar al-Assad.

Looking more broadly, there are very few democratic Houses or Parliaments in the region—for example, Saudi Arabia has the Shura Council, but that is 100% appointed—so Syria has the chance and the opportunity to develop and embed that. The fact that we have a partially elected Parliament is very positive, but parliamentarians, and the institution itself, need support, and the breadth of experience that the UK can bring to bear.

Q12        Chair: Could you give us some examples of the sort of thing that Britain should be doing, to bring it to life?

Dr Quilliam: For example, at the moment, there will be a Foreign Affairs Committee established by the byelaw. It is about co-ordinating and working with that new Foreign Affairs Committee, and sharing the experience that you have directly.

Chair: There we go.

Sir John Whittingdale: Go for it!

Dr Quilliam: That is very real and tangible.

There are constraints around some of the byelaws. The extent to which Ministers will be called before Committees to be held to account is not clear to me—that is a very grey area—but this FAC could certainly teach the new one and perhaps share its experience of what that looks like, how it might shape up and all the procedures behind it.

Chair: And get some ideas for how to do it better.

Dr Quilliam: This is a new institution, effectively.

Dr Turkmani: There is a great willingness to learn; for example, some Members of the Parliament went to Jordan to learn from the Jordanian experience. I think they would very much welcome the idea of visiting here to see how the Committees and hearings work, and to go into the Chamber—that would be beneficial. Certainly, a visit by Members of the UK Parliament to Syria would be very beneficial.

To add something else about what the UK could do, one area where the UK is already doing very well is moving from humanitarian support towards economic recovery by supporting the agriculture sector, which is the key economic sector in Syria. However, there is a gap there. Right now, Syria is facing tremendous environmental issues. That is not just an environmental and economic issue, but a security threat. A few days ago, a Member of this Parliament, Adrian Ramsay, said in a UK Select Committee meeting that environmental collapse in the UK should be seen as a national security threat. That is in the UK. Imagine the case in Syria, a country that relies on agriculture, but where the temperature is rising at twice the international average rate. Most of the industries in the country depend on the agriculture sector—

Q13        Chair: Sorry, the temperature is rising at twice the international average rate?

Dr Turkmani: It is, in the whole of the middle east.

Q14        Chair: What was the next bit you said?

Dr Turkmani: In recent research we conducted on the value chain in the industrial sector, it came out that all the industries start from agricultural products, so any collapse of that sector would have a cascading effect on the economy and on livelihoods.

Also, the research that we conducted recently into worldwide conflict drivers, with support from the Foreign Office, shows that climate change is increasingly becoming one of the accelerators of conflicts worldwide. It does not cause conflict on its own, but it overlaps with other issues. Especially in areas like Syria, where we have weak capacity, weak governance and an inability to adapt, it intensifies conflicts and the chances of displacement, migration and so forth.

Although the UK currently has an element about climate adaptation in its support under the agricultural sector, I think that climate adaptation should become a whole new line in the UK’s support to Syria. That would increase its ability to adapt and mitigate, help it to produce its own knowledge about this, rather not just using imported knowledge, and help us to see this as a climate justice issue. Syria contributed very little to the international climate crisis and it is unfair to leave it to face the consequences on its own.

Q15        Chair: That is a really important point, but is there another problem when it comes to access to agriculture? Is there a problem with unexploded ordinance or that sort of thing?

Dr Turkmani: Absolutely, there is in some areas, especially in the northern countryside of Homs, where there are still many mines and we still hear stories about farmers being killed by them. There is a lot of work that would certainly help to regain lots of those areas.

There are also important areas where we have water. One of the consequences of climate change is that droughts are becoming more frequent and longer. Competition over water resources is intensifying, and some of the water is on land where there are lots of mines.

Q16        Chair: Before I open this up, I have an important question—I do not know if it is answerable or not. It is important for the international community to have some way of measuring progress. How can we measure the transitional Government? Is it being successful in building robust institutions while being representative? At the moment, in these early stages, it is great—"It’s not Assad; it’s great!” But in the next stage, how do we move beyond—to use a fashionable phrase at the moment—the vibes to something that can be measured? Is there an answer to that?

Dr Quilliam: That takes my mind to those horrible things, KPIs. You need to have some massive tracking document with KPIs that are being hit. Everything at the moment is very much ad hoc and based on different testimonies.

How do you see the balance across the piece? The word uneven always comes to mind; it is one of those horrible words, but progress is clearly very uneven. One would have to devise, probably using AI, a very complex set of measures and then you would have to feed into it on a regular basis.

Dr Turkmani: I would also add that, right now, there seems to be a tendency to measure the progress based first on traditional security measures, but also on what you see written on the papers and the official statements made. We need to go beyond that.

We should see progress in terms of the citizen-state relationship. Is it improving, and do the citizens feel that it is a state they belong to or are part of? Are they contributing to the making of a state that they can belong to? That is where long-term stability lies. In some areas—take the north-east, where the Kurdish majority reside right now—that is not how they feel.

It is important to continue to talk to people to understand the change and how superficial it is and really go beyond what you hear in the statements, especially about inclusion. Ask people how they feel, not what the Government say they are providing.

Q17        Chair: We met some Syrian refugees when we were in Lebanon, and we asked some women, “What would help you to go back?” They said, “We want to be safe, and we want education for our children. There are no schools functioning at the moment, and if we went back home, we would not be safe.” That is quite an interesting perspective, and it is very different from the way the Government are talking about Syria and the importance of progress.

Dr Quilliam: It is very easy to be seduced by all the international successes that we read about. That is where a lot of attention and focus is, for example Sharaa attending a G7 meeting. All those things are really well broadcast, but we need a much better understanding of what is happening at a much more local level.

Dr Turkmani: That leads to another important point: the way to know what people feel is to be there, so I would argue for a stronger UK presence inside Syria and I would think about opening the embassy again.

Chair: I am being warned that we will run out of time if we are so expansive, although it is very interesting—I am sure this will come up again. We ought to move on to Abtisam; I think her questions follow on from what we have been talking about.

Q18        Abtisam Mohamed: Dr Reem, you mentioned that 10% of the composition of Parliament are women. We know that one was previously appointed by the President, but were the remaining elected into position?

Dr Turkmani: Five were elected and seven were appointed by the President.

Q19        Abtisam Mohamed: So that is less than 10%. Do any of those women have responsibilities in the current Parliament?

Dr Turkmani: Yes; one is the deputy head. I think the other responsibilities are still emerging. They seem to be very serious about their role. They see their success as the opening for more women to come in the future. They want to be seen as successful not because they are women, but because they are bringing a substantive, meaningful contribution to the Parliament.

Q20        Abtisam Mohamed: Following on from that point, what specific actions or opportunities are available to encourage more participation—not just the numerical aspect in the Parliament, but the grassroots involvement of women getting engaged in politics in Syria?

Dr Turkmani: We need to support the women who made it to the Parliament and build their capacity, including their media presence, but also protect the overall space for women stepping into politics in Syria, particularly the virtual one. It is being used to attack them. My friend Rola Roukbi just gave a speech, for example, at the Security Council, in which she was critical of the Government, and vicious attacks came not from the Government, but from the populists on social media who made threats to her life. How we control that space to make it safe for Syrian women is a big question right now.

Q21        Abtisam Mohamed: We spoke to a number of women in Lebanon as well, and they said very similar things. They were not entirely confident about the process and what it would mean for their involvement. They saw it as an opportunity, but they were very worried about what it could mean for them to speak up against the Government or challenge any different ideals. We spoke earlier about the UK perhaps helping Syria. Is there any support we could offer in terms of gender involvement and becoming more inclusive in the political landscape?

Dr Turkmani: Absolutely. To stress meaningful gender inclusion, I would put three lines under “meaningful”, and not just have women appointed. In the north-east, there has been a lot of gain, and now it is being lost in the recent integration. For every position, they used to have two men and a woman. Now, because they are being integrated in the central Government, it is mainly men who are taken on board, so we are making losses. I mentioned the north-east because that is an area where the UK have some influence and they can use that right now to say, “No, we cannot go back on the gains that were made on women’s participation, and we hope that that would present a model that can be replicated in other parts of the country.”

Q22        Fleur Anderson: Thank you so much for seeing us today. We have many Syrian refugees in my area of London whom I know well—I am sure they will be listening in. I want to talk about wider peace in the region and the role of Israel at the moment. The Syrian Observatory has documented 53 Israeli attacks inside Syria during 2026, 49 of which were carried out by ground forces, and there were some incursions in established positions beyond the 1974 ceasefire line. I will come to you first, Dr Quilliam: what are Israel’s objectives in Syria, and how have they evolved since the fall of the Assad regime?

Dr Quilliam: I think we have to look at Israel in a new light since the fall of the Assad regime. I don’t think we need to think about it prior to that. It has made very clear its opposition to the Sharaa Government and its support for the Druze community. It wants to extend its influence inside the country. Initially, after the fall of Assad, it made military interventions to downgrade weapon stocks—that was a very clear goal.

I think Israel wants to keep Syria in a state of—I am using very nice words—flux and disorganisation. It has a goal to undermine the authority of the state and stop the state from extending its authority right across the territory. In the interim, for the time being and I guess going forward, Israel will want to hold on to the additional territories that it took very early on in this new phase of Syria.

Personally, I see Israel as a destabilising force. When one looks at Syria, nearly every country in the region wants it to work and has come in with what I would describe as a bear hug—trying to make it work. There are two countries that are not doing that: one is Iran and one is Israel. I do not think Israel sees a unitary, strong, together Syria as something that serves its interests.

Q23        Fleur Anderson: You mentioned the Druze community. Israel are saying that they need to be there for protection of the Druze community. Are they using that as an excuse for their actions more widely? Do the Druze community see them as a protector? Is it a valid and useful position that they are taking there?

Dr Quilliam: Syria has been permeable and highly penetrated since prior to the civil war, but certainly during the civil war. Israel has traditionally in different countries backed specific, individual groups. It has its own Druze community, which places pressure on the Government. We cannot just use the word “Druze” to refer to everyone; it is like using the word “Briton”—we are all very different. There are components and elements within the Druze community that are receiving support from Israel and do so because they want to build out either their own federal structure or a much stronger autonomous structure, but that is a small component.

To answer your question, yes, Israel is using this as leverage. I do not think that it would necessarily need to use it if it did not want to. It can still hold on to and occupy part of the Golan and beyond, going up to Hermon. As we saw a couple of weeks ago, it carried out attacks against an airfield in Idlib. I do not think it needs an excuse, but it certainly gives it an anchor through which it can purport its support.

Dr Turkmani: To follow up on this, which I fully support, there are two things that the UK could do. That attack on the airbase was one that Turkey wanted to use, so, in a way, Syria is becoming an area where Turkey and Israel are testing each other’s red lines and confronting each other. That is very dangerous for the whole region, and that is where the UK can come and play a deconflicting role. Secondly, given all that Israel is doing—continuing to occupy the Golan heights and now going and taking even more Syrian land—the current ban on trade with settlements that the UK Government are considering should also extend to the settlements in the Golan heights.

Q24        Fleur Anderson: What situation is the Syria-Israel security agreement in now? What are the likely pressures from the international community—maybe neighbouring countries or others, like the UK? What are the main barriers to having that agreement?

Dr Quilliam: The two Governments held their meeting a couple of weeks ago. The file very much sits in the hands of the US. It depends whether the US puts the pressure, makes them come together and makes them work. The Syrian position has been fairly clear from early on that a security agreement or a security framework is very much in its interests. The lack of interest or the paucity in wanting to push forward with that sits with Israel. The way through that is that yes, the international community and the UK can support and encourage both sides to work together, but I really think that sits within the purview of the US President and his team.

Q25        Fleur Anderson: Is there pressure from within Israel? Do the population want to see this agreement? Is it discussed or talked about within Israel?

Dr Quilliam: I do not think it is a big issue. There are other, bigger issues that are on the minds of Israelis. It is not prominent.

Q26        Richard Foord: I am going to ask a few questions about Türkiye. What do you think Türkiye sees as its role in shaping Syria’s security agreements?

Dr Quilliam: Turkey clearly feels a strong alignment of interests with Syria. It is very close to this current Government and so will want to match and mirror its security framework—its security co-operation. There was concern in the early phases—if we discount Israel in this part of the conversation—that there would be competition between Turkey and some of the Gulf states, particularly the UAE or Saudia Arabia, but there has been some alignment and clear interest there. Turkey sees Syria as falling within its purview, but that is not to say that Syria is not an independent state that wants to have an independent position and will want to hedge and balance out that relationship.

Dr Turkmani: I would support that, but I would like to add how Turkey is shaping the internal security scene inside Syria, particularly with it backing the battles against some of the Kurdish factions in the last six or seven months. That played a role in the calculations made by the recent Kurdish leaders when they settled the agreement with Damascus last week. The agreement is seen as very unequal. It appoints General Mazloum Abdi, the leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces, as an adviser to the President. People are asking, “What is the power of an adviser? After 14 years and all that has happened, that is what you get?” They do not have a legally protected presence in the Government in any shape or form.

When we asked them about their calculations and why they accepted that compromise, Turkey came up. They said, “We knew that if we went into a battle, it would not just be a battle with the Syrian forces. It would also be with Turkey. Could we afford that?” The whole Syrian scene is being influenced. It is good progress that they reached an agreement on security—on how to integrate the Syrian Democratic Forces into the Syrian security scene—but it is not matched with political integration. Turkey needs to know that if the Kurds are not meaningfully integrated politically in Syria, in central Damascus but also in other areas, there will be no long-term security, because so many Kurds resent the current arrangements.

Q27        Richard Foord: What is the political representation of Kurdish communities, aside from that adviser role to the President?

Dr Turkmani: Hardly anything. There are no roles in Government. In the previous Government that was put together, the Minister of Education came from a Kurdish background, but he was not somebody that the north-east Kurdish community nominated. They have nothing legally protecting them. They have only some cultural rights now being protected, such as the Kurdish language, the right to teach it and so on. That was the only advancement they made—nothing further than that. They feel excluded from the decision-making power inside Damascus.

Q28        Richard Foord: Thinking about the peace process between the PKK and the Government in Türkiye, do you feel that those developments in Syria can help ease the tension between the PKK and the Turkish Government?

Dr Turkmani: I think they do, but there is a fear among the Syrian Kurds that Turkey does not want them to make political gains that then become precedent for the Kurds inside Turkey. They will create a new model and then have to replicate it. That is why they would rather keep them excluded. Other than that, there has been confusion among the Kurds I spoke to about what is going on within Turkey or even in Syria, because we still do not know the details even of the agreement in Syria. That raises even more questions about the content.

Dr Quilliam: I might flip that, though. I think that the progress made between the PKK and the Turkish Government has had a bearing on what we have just seen taking place with the SDF and Mazloum Abdi—that absorption. That is a part consequence coming from Turkey itself.

Q29        Chair: But the absorption does not include women fighters, as we hear in the media.

Dr Quilliam: That is right.

Q30        Chair: I am sure that other people have already got this, but there is this issue about women fighters, which is the sort of thing that hits the media. You are also saying that there was equal representation in the democratic structures among Kurds in Syria, because each post had a man and a woman doing it.

Dr Turkmani: Yes. In every seat, they would have two co-chairs: one woman and one man.

Q31        Chair: In each seat?

Dr Turkmani: For chairing any office. Even for the leadership of the Syrian Democratic Council, the co-chairs were chosen so that it was one female and one male, and they replicated that model in many of the top positions they had.

Chair: That is very interesting; thank you.

Q32        Sir John Whittingdale: Can I ask about Russia’s position? Russia was obviously the primary backer of Bashar Assad and has the two bases in Syria. We understand that an agreement has been reached and Syrians will, to some extent, take over those bases. To what extent do you think Russia still has influence in Syria, and how important is it that it retains a military capacity, particularly at the naval base for access to the Mediterranean?

Dr Quilliam: It does. There were those negotiations and agreements yesterday, and it retains some military capacity and capability in the country. It is clearly not what it was prior to the collapse of the Assad regime, but Sharaa has been quite adroit at hedging as best as he can and managing that relationship. In the early days after the fall of Assad, there was a lot of speculation that Russian influence would vanish overnight, as would Iranian influence, but they have long, deep ties to the country that are still present, so they still have degrees of influence.

Q33        Sir John Whittingdale: So will Russian naval vessels still be able to operate from Syria?

Dr Quilliam: Yes, they will.

Q34        Sir John Whittingdale: Does the presence of Assad in Moscow affect the relationship, or do the Syrians just accept that that is the way it is?

Dr Turkmani: I think that the Syrians just want to move forward. Assad is not the central point right now. Russia has far more leverage over Syria because of the wheat; Syria still imports a lot of wheat and oil from Russia.

Q35        Sir John Whittingdale: So to some extent there is an economic necessity to maintain that relationship.

Dr Turkmani: Yes, they heavily depend on it.

Q36        Chair: Although Syria used to be the breadbasket; Syria used to grow wheat.

Dr Turkmani: Exactly. We used to export wheat. We still grow wheat, but we used to export it, and right now we have to import it. Ukraine and Russia are still two of the main sources.

Q37        Sir John Whittingdale: One of the reasons Russia always gave for its support for Assad was that, if it was not Assad, it would be Islamic extremism. It cited ISIS very much as the alternative. We have clearly moved on a long way since then, but to what extent is ISIS still a threat in Syria?

Dr Quilliam: It is still a threat; it still has a presence. We have seen a series of attacks over the past year, and some well-timed—or poorly timed—attacks during Macron’s visit, so it still has some capabilities. It obviously does not hold territory or have the same organisational structure from before it was struck.

As Reem said, this is a big canvas and a big space. The Government will do what they can to extend their authority and influence into those areas. We have to remember that Syria is, to a large extent, still very fractured. The Government do have reach, but there are groups that are beholden to them and were fighting with them that have just disappeared and gone into the ether, and they have differing loyalties that are not to the Syrian state or the Syrian people. I think we will continue to see sporadic ISIS attacks. They announced back in May, I think, that they are going to begin a new campaign, so they will be ever-present, waiting to puncture any security vulnerabilities that they can identify.

Q38        Sir John Whittingdale: Without US support, do you think the Syrian regime is capable of resisting and preventing that?

Dr Quilliam: This is where it really needs to draw upon the experience of the SDF. It really depends on how those forces are brought into the central armed forces, how they are deployed, and whether they draw on the extremely valuable experience that they have gained.

Dr Turkmani: Can I add to that? ISIS thrives on recruiting people who feel very bitterly excluded, so the more that we help to build inclusive governance, the less of a threat there is from ISIS in Syria.

Q39        Edward Morello: You talked earlier about Israel’s incursions indirectly into Syria. Obviously, one of the broader regional geopolitical issues is the Israel-Iran conflict. What is your feeling of the impact of that conflict on Syria? Syria has sought to stay neutral. Has it been successful in that? Do you have any view on whether that is sustainable in the long term, or is it just background noise to what is going on internally?

Dr Turkmani: It is not a very big issue right now for Syria. It is rather neutral. Syria is trying to be rather neutral—more anti-Iran, let’s say. It does not want a confrontation with Iran, but Iran’s presence inside Syria has been weakened dramatically. Its only role now is what it is doing in Lebanon—that is the indirect way—but inside Syria it is much weaker than it was before.

Dr Quilliam: I would second that. It is more background noise. Project Syria is huge and is consuming a lot of time and energy but, as Reem said, Syria is trying to chart a neutral course, focusing very much on the domestic side of things. The strange twist of fate is that it looks like one of the most stable countries in the region at the moment.

Q40        Edward Morello: Obviously the Israel-Iran conflict and US involvement have impacted quite a lot of the GCC countries. You mentioned the bear hug that neighbouring countries were giving Syria. GCC countries are reprioritising money internally into their own rebuilding of damaged infrastructure and improving defence. Is that likely to have any impact on their commitment to sending money to, rebuilding or investing in Syria?

Dr Quilliam: The instinctive answer is yes. A lot of commitments have been made, and a lot of MOUs have been signed, but we have not seen that materialise in any meaningful way. There are contracts. There is quite a lot of port development, and some infrastructure development. As we saw with Syria during the years of its war, there are a lot of pledges, but they have not materialised. Clearly, the Gulf states have to reprioritise. The issue of Hormuz is structural, so they are putting their money in other areas. That will have a diminishing impact on how they can support Syria.

Q41        Edward Morello: Dr Turkmani, the Chair mentioned that Syria used to be the breadbasket of the middle east—it was a great exporter of grain. As Syria looks to rebuild and, I assume, hopes to become a regional power, as all countries do, what are the sectors that it has an opportunity to emerge in? You mentioned the importance of agriculture, but are there any other potential markets in which Syria could be a regional leader?

Dr Turkmani: Certainly, restoring agriculture, because it relates to many of the industries that are the signature of Syrian products, which you can buy even here in the UK, in London supermarkets. They are excellent food products.

There is also an opportunity in that the Syrian desert is the closest desert linked by land to Europe. It could be a place where you build massive solar power plants to generate energy that arrives in Europe by cable over land, rather than undersea. You can compare it with the project that you had with Morocco, which was meant to feed 8% of UK energy. That was meant to be through very expensive undersea cables. With Syria’s desert it could be done all over land, so it would be much cheaper. That is a huge area where we can make use out of empty land, which can help to recover the economy and, if you use the right technology, can also help to recover the Syrian economy as well. That can be the right alternative to Hormuz. Rather than saying, “Let’s use Syria as a transit for pipelines for oil and gas,” which Europe is already transitioning out of, you can say, “Let’s use Syria as a source of clean energy.”

I would also look at tourism, which used to be one of the major sectors. Of course, we need increased security for that, but I just came back from a five-week trip to Syria with my family, including my son, who is sitting behind me today. We went through the whole country. I asked him at the end of the visit, “Did you at any point feel unsafe?”, and he said, “No.” So it is improving.

One point that I would really like to stress is that we need a UK presence inside Syria in order to know all this and to really understand what the people want, what they feel towards the state, and to be influential during this extremely important phase of Syria’s history. It is a critical juncture, and these two institutions that are going to emerge are going to last for some time. It is an important time for the UK to be present on the ground, through an embassy. Already, Denmark and Germany have established their presence; why cannot the UK follow, when it has opened embassies in other countries where the security situation is difficult, such as in Tripoli, Mogadishu and Baghdad?

Related to that is the travel advice, which remains against any travel to Syria. That might have to be reconsidered, taking into consideration the varying security situation. Again, the UK handles that in other places. In Lebanon, for example, you have varying levels of security in different parts, and the UK travel advice and presence take that into consideration. I think it is time to do the same for Syria, so that you can have an embassy and the British Council. When I speak to people, they say, “We want the British Council even more than the embassy.” It was like a space of fresh air in the country, building cultural relations and educational relations. That presence would really give you the ability to influence and help in putting the country in the right direction.

Emily Thornberry: On that note, thank you very much for giving evidence. It was really important and interesting evidence.

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Charlotte Leslie and Jon Wilks.

Q42        Chair: The Foreign Affairs Committee will now move on to the second panel that we have in front of us in our Syria inquiry. Could you introduce yourselves, please, beginning with Jon Wilks?

Jon Wilks: Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Jon Wilks. I am currently a senior adviser to the Syria Britain Business Council. I have been in Syria about six times in the last year, very much focused on private sector development and supporting British business. I was in the Foreign Office for 34 years as an Arabist and ambassador in various countries. I was also Syria envoy; that was after we had shut our embassy, so I ran the Syria file from outside between 2012 and 2014.

Currently, I am working in Washington DC, although I am still UK-based, in the Atlantic Council, where I am running a dialogue between Europe and the US on the middle east. We have found that Syria is one of the most productive files that we can discuss, so I am actually doing a dialogue between the US and Europe on Syria.

Chair: That sounds very interesting, but hang on; we will get on to that in a minute. Charlotte, could you introduce yourself?

Charlotte Leslie: I am Charlotte Leslie. I am the director of the Conservative Middle East Council, and once upon a time I sat on your side of the table as MP for Bristol North West. During that time, I was a vice-chair of the Conservative Middle East Council. I was in Syria with, I believe, the last parliamentary delegation to be there in February 2011, when Simon Collis was ambassador, and I saw at first hand the value of the British Council. I was in Syria in June with the Syria Britain Business Council. I think they were the first parliamentarians who went back, so I was the last parliamentarian out and among the first in.

Q43        Chair: I think you were in the room when we were asking questions of the previous witnesses. We were beginning to move on to the territory that we want to ask you about, which is economic recovery in Syria and how we see Syria developing. If I can begin with a general question, what are the biggest obstacles to economic recovery in Syria today?

Jon Wilks: Although great progress has been made in security and stability, that will be, for years to come, an issue on the minds of investors, visitors and businesses setting up in Syria. But in the past 18 months, and continuing every month this year, we have seen more improvements than we have seen deterioration. I heard some of the discussion in the last panel about the Kurds. I was talking to a businessman who is operating up in the north-east, which had been one of the areas that people were most worried about declining rapidly into conflict. He said that, actually, it has gone the opposite way. There are issues—tribal issues, Arab-Kurd issues—but he feels more safe operating there than he has done for the past 18 months. But that will always be an issue, despite the progress that has been made.

The second issue, which our members, British businesses and Syrian diaspora businesses, are raising with us, is the banking sector and the ability to move money electronically, including hard currencies, in and out of the country. There is some progress there, which has been helped by a lifting of the state sponsor of terrorism designation in the US and of other sanctions by the US, EU and UK, but there is an inherent caution at this stage of a transition. Some banks are doing small numbers of transactions but, as I have seen in other post-conflict transitions, this is very much an exponential curve: little by little, banks will start to get more confidence, and then things will flip and banks will want to be part of this. That progress is encouraging, even though it is very slow, but that is the biggest issue.

Q44        Chair: Is there another way of putting that, which is the concerns about regulation?

Jon Wilks: Yes: legal and regulatory frameworks, corruption, money laundering, drugs money and that sort of thing. We have banks who are members of the Syria Britain Business Council who are taking steps to clean their accounts and to present themselves to international banks as worthy partners, but that still has some way to go.

Q45        Chair: Realistically speaking, what are the biggest opportunities for growth and investment? Where should British business be looking?

Jon Wilks: As the IMF recently reported, it is expecting growth of 10% this year—that is obviously a bounce back from a disastrous decade or more. We find that there are opportunities for UK companies in the early stages of recovery from conflict. That might be the next stage beyond humanitarian aid, de-mining and dealing with the huge problem of unexploded ordnance across the country or basic investment in infrastructure and housing. Obviously, public services is a huge area.

For UK companies, we have three types. First, there will be high-level services, which might be legal and financial services helping the banking sector recover, or architectural and project design services, where companies from other countries—Turkey, for instance—may actually do the construction, but the higher-value work will be done by British companies. Secondly, there will be companies that are used to operating in post-conflict environments: security and risk consultancies, de-mining and that sort of thing. Thirdly, there will be British companies that are traditionally involved in energy and energy-related sectors. They could be oil trading companies, oil and gas companies or service companies. I think those would be the three areas that we would see in the short term.

In the long term—this reflects, perhaps, the discussion about the British Council—the great demand from Syria is for British education, partnerships on the ground and the ability to have Syrians who can be educated both in Syria and in the UK. In the Syria Britain Business Council, I think our most exciting and promising subsector for the long term will be education.

Q46        Chair: Is there anything you want to add, Charlotte, about the opportunities that there may be in Syria?

Charlotte Leslie: It really goes to what was being talked about in the last session: there are significant opportunities. I cannot emphasise enough what a complete state of rubble, both institutionally and physically, the country is in and what they are rebuilding from. It has been decimated materially, but the trust in society has been decimated as well, so you are dealing with massive trauma.

What is really striking is that, in the midst of this, the demand is for the UK. Again and again—not just in Syria; I hear this all over the middle east, but particularly in Syria at the moment—they say, “Where is the UK? Other countries are coming in and getting involved. They are getting ambassadors and embassies in, and the UK is conspicuously absent. You guys are the ones we trust most on exactly what we need: institution building and education. This is what we look to the UK for, and you’re not here.”

One of the other really interesting things I found when I was speaking to people—whether it is accurate or not is, in a sense, not so important—is that the word on the street is that the Brits were very responsible for the removal of Assad and the installation of al-Sharaa. The legend on the street is, “The Brits came in, got rid of this terrible regime and liberated us, but then you guys disappeared when we really wanted you.”

That is not only a missed opportunity; as the optimism after the liberation inevitably turns to the realities of rebuilding—people are poor and a lot of the things that existed under the oppressive regime, which they are pleased to be rid of, have now disappeared, and things are not replacing them—people are beginning to say, “Well, hang on a sec; the Brits have just abandoned us.” That good will is therefore beginning to fray and fracture.

The other thing that I am hearing, although I cannot vouch for its accuracy, is that not only are other competitor states and countries moving in—Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland were all at the big Damascus trade fair, while Britain was not—but other actors are moving in to build the organisational structures. One of the reasons the Muslim Brotherhood is so effective across the region is that it is very good at organising and providing social structures. While the Government is desperately trying to build itself out of rubble in an enormous and fragmented country—physically and socially—we are not there to step in and help, and others are stepping in who are not nearly such constructive actors. That is the thing that I was struck by in nearly every conversation I had. People say: “Reopen the embassy and review your travel advice, even if it is only for Damascus.”

Interestingly, if you look at the travel advice from comparable countries, everyone says, “Don’t go,” but at the same time I also hear people saying things like this from a Syrian-British businessman: “I want to open a hotel, and I wanted a British company to do it, but there were no Brits, so I have had to deploy a German architect, and I am looking for Danes who are going to do it.” They all have the same travel advice, but despite the brilliant efforts of the SBBC, which is doing great work, there is an awful lot more from other nationalities, and more other-nationality businesses, interest and diplomatic presence, than from the UK at the moment.

Q47        Chair: Doesn’t the travel advice impact on insurance? Is that not one of the biggest problems? I see you nodding.

At a moment like this, when we talk about where Britain is and what Britain can be doing, should Syria be more dependent on aid or on private investment? What is the Government’s attitude to that? Could you help us with that? In what sectors do we think we could be most effective? You have told us what Britain can do, but what sectors does Syria need to develop quickly and be dependent on the international community for? Will that be done through trade or aid?

Jon Wilks: The private sector should definitely lead this, and British Government policy reflects that. We have humanitarian aid contributions, but I do not think this is going to be a development priority, given the demands on the development budget. The Syrian Government say the same thing; they say that they recognise that they do not have the oil and gas resources to become a rentier state—not like the Gulf states and not like Iraq—and that Syrians must, in the next year or two, feel benefits from the interest that is being taken internationally, and that has to be delivered through grassroots private sector activity.

It is not going to be the big projects that have that impact on millions of Syrians across the country. We have at least got buy-in in terms of the discourse from Syria, the British Government and other Governments in the region and beyond—east and west. The question is making it happen, given that the country is still extremely limited in its financial resources and that it requires investors still to take substantial risks, which countries in the region are maybe more prepared to do because they have a political and strategic interest in the success of Syria’s stabilisation and recovery.

There is a consensus and a window that will last a couple of years at least, whereby everybody more or less agrees that the private sector has to deliver the next stage of recovery, so this is the question on all our minds, which we are testing out through all the work we are doing in the Syria Britain Business Council: are the President, the people around him and the power in the country committed to an open economy? Of course, there is this great middle east tradition towards quite a closed economy; it might be formally reliant on private sector companies, but everything, including decisions and allocations of contracts and resources, is done at the centre of power in a non-transparent way.

Which way is this going to go? In the last 12 months, I have seen more indications that it is going to go in the open direction, but nevertheless there are extraordinary pressures on the President from his movement: “We delivered this revolution, we have put our lives on the line and we need to see our share of the benefits.” There is a fine line to be trod, but have the President and the senior advisers around him accepted the argument that there will be a real threat to stability if we do not create jobs and spread economic opportunity across the country? I think the answer is yes, and that is what we are working with.

Chair: That leads us quite neatly on to Abtisam’s questions.

Q48        Abtisam Mohamed: Yes. It is fascinating hearing about the importance that business will have. When we went to Lebanon, we spoke to civil society groups, and they were keen to be involved in the future transition. How involved are they at present? Are they involved in recovery, and to what extent?

Jon Wilks: As I said, when I was Syria envoy for the British Government, we were working with the opposition, which of course did not include the current President, who was then part of an al-Qaeda franchise. We were working with secular, democratic actors, and the Muslim Brotherhood as well—it went some way into the Islamist space. When I go back, I notice that some of those people are free to operate. It is a good sign that although these people who wanted to be the new Government, or to negotiate a transition from the Assad regime, did not achieve that, they are being allowed to be part of the recovery.

I have managed to do one visit out of Damascus in the last couple of months, and that was to Homs and the areas between Damascus and Homs. What I noticed on the ground, and I understand that this is the same in the other big cities, is that you have grassroots recovery that is dependent on a lot of what we would call civil society and that will be dependent on local fundraising or remittances. It is not yet big budgets from central Government that is allowing cities to recover, but recovering they are, and civil society is playing a big role in that.

My personal reflection, from my time working in Syria and my whole career in the middle east, is that we need to get civil society, business and Governments in the room together from the beginning, particularly in transitions like this. Something that I am encouraging, and that we are trying to do with the business council, is to say that this business council will only succeed if we work with civil society and Governments—British, Syrian and others in the region.

Q49        Abtisam Mohamed: Are they in the room at present?

Jon Wilks: Yes. The conference that we had, which Charlotte attended, was the first big British business conference in Syria, with the MPs present, which sent a very positive signal. We had civil society and the Syrian Government in the room, and we will build on that.

Charlotte Leslie: It is a recurring theme that the intention of the Government is actually a lot more open and progressive than you might imagine. I was constantly surprised by the modernity and the progressiveness of the aims: yes to business and yes to the concept of women’s representation being how you do it.

It is the same with civil society. For a long time, civil society had been getting on and doing it itself. Then, after the fall of the regime, it really had to take on the role of a lot of Government. There is openness. I had a meeting with civil society and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the challenge was, how do Government pass over responsibilities to civil society, or how do civil society pass over responsibility to the Government when they are already doing it. They are finding that interaction very practically difficult.

You also find that there is great variation between Departments. It is very easy to talk about “the Government”, and obviously the President is central, but there is a lot of difference between the different Ministries in the tone and in way things work.

Q50        Abtisam Mohamed: Are there examples of how they are shaping policy at the moment or trying to support the Government in its formation?

Charlotte Leslie: Yes. Again, what is interesting is that whatever people’s past, I detected a surprising level of support for the President; there will be complaints and criticism, but ultimately absolute support. One of the meetings we had during the conference was with civil society, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was present. I think that it was decided that it would be a more open conversation if Government officials left the room, but the civil society groups were very keen for them to be in the room. Anyway, they left the room, and there was some very robust talk about empowerment of women and how the Government need to do more on that, and faster. One of our group said, “Would you say this to the President?” and one of the female NGO leaders said, “Well, I have said that—and more.” So in comparison to being in Syria in 2011, when you could feel the freeze—you could feel the fear—freedom of speech is really strong. The problem is that nothing is happening from it. I think that there are genuinely good intentions and there is freedom of speech, but it is about the mechanics of how you actually change stuff.

One issue that we have talked about is cash and moving from a completely cash economy to a banking system. Within the last few weeks, the first electronic transfer took place in Damascus, but not a lot has happened after that. I asked a friend why, and she said, “It is really hard. How on earth do you have a system when everything is run on cash, and you have a history like Syria has just had. How on earth do you confirm the origin of your cash?”

Q51        Chair: Is it Syrian cash or dollars?

Charlotte Leslie: It is Syrian cash. So how do you begin to look at the origin of that? Secondly, it is about behaviour change. Thirdly, if it is in cash, the Government has more financial control over it.

Then you look at issues of corruption. Because people are not yet trusting that they are equal before the law, they want to use cash to pay for stuff; they do not want to enter a system, because they do not trust things. The culture is that if you want a position, you will offer someone money, which is corrupt. So even if you have systems that do not want to be corrupt, the culture of the people and society is that you will be corrupt, because that is how you have done it. You have this vicious circle: how do you move from a cash economy to an international banking system when you have people who do not feel equal before the law and you cannot identify the origins of your cash? So one of the challenges that Syria faces is that it is stuck in this vicious circle where one thing leads to another. At some point, we have to find some way to break that so that they can have a breakthrough. Is that fair, Jon?

Jon Wilks: Yes. I would just add that the feeling you get in Syria—it is so positive—is that we have our country back. Most Syrians believe that; not all, but a critical mass—a big majority. That has a positive political effect and a positive effect in business confidence terms, through the willingness of Syrians from the diaspora to maybe come back, set up a small business, give it a go and help their town and their wider family. But it does not extend yet to the institutions, whether it is the Government, the state, the Parliament or the banking system. Those are all inherited ideas. Some of those institutions are being renewed, including the Parliament, but the people are not yet feeling that those institutions are theirs. It is going to be an important strategic milestone to achieve that over the next couple of years.

Q52        Chair: Over the years, though, I have heard positive things about local government—that there was a local government network in Syria that was much stronger that you would have thought, given Assad’s totalitarianism. Is there anything left of that?

Jon Wilks: Although there is some continuity in state institutions, because there has been a revolution, they are essentially starting again. There is a lot of informal grassroots governance because the state is new and weak and patchy in its coverage. Some of that may be continuity with the old regime; some of it is under newly appointed governors and city mayors. What I saw in Homs is that there is top-down governance but also quite a lot of grassroots initiative as well. As the state strengthens, there will be a question of the balance of centralisation with federalism.

Q53        Sir John Whittingdale: While we are on criminality, corruption and the rest, one of the biggest economic activities under the Assad regime was drug production and distribution. To what extent is that still going on? Or has the new regime attempted to stop it?

Charlotte Leslie: It is significantly reduced. Jon can probably answer, but it is significantly reduced, and countries around Syria are already feeling the effects.

Jon Wilks: I can only report back what I am hearing from our Syrian members or British members on the ground, which is that it is much reduced. But it is certainly not history; it is still happening. Again, that is partially because state authorities—state governance—are only partial across all of that territory. The areas where a lot of that production happened were already outside of the control of Damascus. They might have been regime-held areas, but there was a legacy issue from that fractured governance.

Q54        Sir John Whittingdale: To some extent, you have already dealt with this, but in terms of the UK’s contribution we have talked about education, the importance with which the British Council is regarded, the admiration for the UK and the feeling that we could be doing much more than everybody else is seeing. If you had a single recommendation about where the UK, with the very limited resources we have, should really try to have an influence and support the new Government, what would that be?

Jon Wilks: You might say that I would say this, but let’s get that embassy opened.

Charlotte Leslie: I would second that. Absolutely. It is what everybody says.

Jon Wilks: It will not be that just the political relationship will deliver for the UK, and the private sector can get on with it, even when the embassy is not there. It will be the ability to help Syria help itself and to build partnerships—whether that is technical expertise, education or, ultimately, our high-level service industries—that will deliver success for the country and be good for our economy and great for our bilateral relationship.

It is essential to have an embassy on the ground. I understand why that is expensive at a time of restricted budgets. Our British embassy estate in Syria was never fit for purpose, even before it was shut, so we really have to start again from scratch. That is expensive, but there are halfway houses to get a presence on the ground, and you need to be on the ground to understand and to build the relationships that will deliver the results.

Charlotte Leslie: We are quite behind comparable countries. I know that makeshift embassies are being set up in the Four Seasons hotel, but they are there. We often make a false distinction—Britain, in particular, has a lot of work to do on this—between diplomacy and business. France joins up diplomacy and business very well, and tends to get contracts where we miss out.

The importance of diplomacy, an embassy or someone on the ground and business is illustrated by a terrible story that a Syrian businesswoman—they do exist—told me. She is in pharmaceuticals and is a distributor. After the fall of the regime, there were debts that needed paying, but it has been difficult to get the payments out to the various companies—she deals with a British company, and the Government did not pay. She tried to find routes to get payment for that company, and the company did too, but there was nothing at all from the British Government; there was no ambassador to go to—absolute silence. She dealt with a Swiss company that had the same problem, and the Swiss had an envoy, who went in and got it sorted. So a British company does not get paid, but a Swiss company does. That is where the importance of diplomats on the ground is illustrated rather starkly; it was not great to hear.

Q55        Edward Morello: To be honest, you have answered my question, which was going to be about whether we need an embassy in Damascus. You have highlighted some of the business and economic impacts of us not having a diplomatic presence on the ground. If we take it as writ that we need to open an embassy, let’s talk about the cost of not doing that or delaying. What does it mean for our diplomatic influence with the new regime and for our regional influence if we are not a player on the ground in Syria?

Jon Wilks: You can go some way through visits, high-level phone calls and a little bit of commercial exploratory activity. The Syria Britain Business Council exists to fill the gap while there is not an embassy commercial section there; we will do the lobbying until the British Government is there and able to do it. But—I think this will be everybody’s experience—you just cannot have the granular understanding and the relationships that count unless you are there on the ground. If you cannot be there in a permanent building 24/7, then at least come in from Beirut for the working week, having done your security assessment for that week, and then go back for the weekend. But be there. You can appear to have a footprint even before you have the buildings. I know there are huge costs for rebuilds, security and all the rest of it, but there are ways to do this.

I also think that having an embassy on the ground sends a great signal to every other element of the British effort, whether it is the private sector, NGOs or people who just want to go and visit Syria—tourism, as we quite rightly heard earlier, is going to be huge. I always used to advise people who had never been to the middle east, even during the Assad regime, “Go to Syria. It is the safest, most beautiful country, with great people, culture, civilisation, food and so on.” Once an embassy is there and some consular assistance is available, travel advice can loosen up and everything else, then, in terms of UK plc can make progress—it is a multiplier.

Charlotte Leslie: The issue is that it is not just Syria where there is this bewilderment. The rest of the region still, rather surprisingly, has high expectations of the UK and its capability, knowledge and ability in diplomacy, and everyone is just so bewildered that we are not there. It shows us as weak and indecisive, and—I am afraid I am going to be absolutely blunt—the general view from the region is that Britain is having some kind of crazy nervous breakdown. That is not a great international look when you are competing in a world where you have new alliances. Russia is attacking us on a daily basis in hybrid ways. We live in a dangerous world; this is no time to look weak and like you are having a nervous breakdown. Not only are you losing opportunities to comparable competitor countries in-country in Syria, but you are waving a big flag to a really dangerous world, saying, “We are for the taking, because we do not know what we are doing and we are a bit weak.”

Q56        Edward Morello: If you will indulge me, Chair, I take all your points on board. We have a FCDO that is having to deal with significant reductions in its budget. Mr Wilks, you have already highlighted the potentially very large cost of going back into Syria at a time when the FCDO is having to look at its global footprint, the level of rationalisation required and what its priorities are. You have highlighted the potential downsides of us not being there, but can we turn that around and make the case for the FCDO prioritising going back to Syria over anything else that it can spend money on?

Jon Wilks: I think that part of the world should be seen as part of our near neighbourhood. Obviously, Ukraine and eastern front issues will be the absolute priority—we get that, and they are. But I think north Africa and the Levant—everything between the Gulf and Europe—for security, migration and prosperity reasons is part of our near neighbourhood.

Even if Britain were to say that we have to be very careful about ideas of global Britain and spreading things too thinly, while I know we have global interests, we have to focus on priorities. That is what the strategy has to be about, and I think near neighbourhood should be where we focus.

I think the vision we need, and it is one we would have if we had a full network of embassies there, is the idea that if Syria moves towards an open economy that helps integrate that region, that would bring Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and maybe ultimately Israel and Palestine, if we get—I know it is a big “if”—some sort of basic deal there.

That region—the Levant or the near east—is already hugely important for us, and Syria could be the thing that makes that vision of an economically integrated recovery, or a renaissance of culture and civilisation and not just business, and of stability. We can help make that happen. The UK is already believed in Syria and the region to have been instrumental in the removal of Bashar al-Assad, and they know that we are active in all the neighbouring countries. I think Syria is at the heart of that, so I think there is a positive strategic argument for being in Syria and making that a success.

Charlotte Leslie: It is a point very well made. I completely echo Jon; I think that, strategically, the eastern Mediterranean is hugely important, and you do not need too many maps to explain that.

The other thing is that you can do these things without huge expenditure. One of the things that I think creates the impression of far more presence than not is continuity of personnel. Ann Snow is really respected, but she has moved. All our Foreign Office diplomats and officials are superb, but they would have much more bang for their buck if they stayed in place a bit longer. There are things we can do that do not cost the earth but have a disproportionate effect.

Q57        Richard Foord: While it is very helpful to know what would be useful for the UK-Syria relationship today, and perhaps in the next year, can I just wrap up this session by asking about the next five to 10 years? What might the UK aspire for in our relationship in a decade’s time?

Jon Wilks: With Syria?

Richard Foord: Yes.

Jon Wilks: The big question is whether we can get a self-sustaining economy going. Can we support and be part of that by partnering through the private sector and through technical assistance? We have to do it within a couple of years, otherwise factors of instability are going to come back in, but it is a decades-long task.

Over your timeframe, I would say that the heart of the matter, for the UK, as well as for other European countries, the US and the region, is getting that self-sustaining economy going to build on the business confidence that comes from Syrians feeling they have their own country back. That way, they can actually have enough of a legal and regulatory framework to get that business confidence up to a level where the average Syrian can feel the benefit. Even though all the problems of that country will not be solved for decades, they can feel that they are on the move. That would be my response.

Charlotte Leslie: Absolutely. If you are looking at the other considerations of the inclusion of minorities and social cohesion, one of the key drivers of lack of social cohesion and one of the main obstacles to rebuilding trust after that trauma is poverty. If people feel that there is no hope and have no money in their pockets, it is much harder to build trust between communities and people become much easier prey to radicalising elements. I echo what Jon said.

Q58        Chair: You were talking about the lack of British presence. All I can say is that we as the Foreign Affairs Committee are pushing as hard as we can to be a little bit of a presence in Syria in the near future and do some cross-parliamentary work. You talked about your conference where parliamentarians were present. I presume that had an impact by itself.

Jon Wilks: It did; it sent a very powerful signal. While Charlotte is right to say that there is some feedback from Syria that the UK should be more present, I am sure they say that to every country because they want everybody to be there. I am going to blow the trumpet of the SBBC here: we had the first big business conference. We beat the Americans to it by two weeks. The feedback is that the Americans did well, but we did as well, if not better. We have to build on that. I do not think the US had a congressional delegation. Having MPs there sent the message that we care and that this is about understanding what you need and being able to go back and integrate the UK effort.

Going back to the question of the Atlantic Council and the dialogue that I am doing, the leadership of Syria has succeeded in a way that is more like Ukraine than other countries to get the region, western countries, the US and Europe engaged. This is an issue where our businesses, our Governments, our Parliaments and our civil societies can work together in a co-ordinated way to deliver an impact greater than the sum of its parts. An invitation will be on its way to everybody on the Foreign Affairs Committee to our celebration of our first year of this dialogue in Oxford on 29 October. There will be a big dinner with lots of very interesting people from America, the middle east and Europe, including parliamentarians. If any of you can join us on 29 October, we would be delighted to welcome you.

Chair: Thank you very much, and thank you very much for giving evidence before us this afternoon. It has been a very interesting session. I am going to suspend this sitting for three minutes.

Examination of witness

Witness: H. E. Hind Kabawat.

Q59        Chair: This is the third panel to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee in our Syria inquiry. We are greatly honoured to have Minister Hind Kabawat in front of us. We are having a few technical difficulties, but I am hoping that she can hear us sufficiently well. I want to ask a general question at the beginning, but first I will say how pleased we are to see you; thank you very much for giving your time. I am so sorry about these technical problems. I wonder whether you can help us: what will success look like in five years’ time?

Minister Kabawat: First, hon. Members, thank you very much for the invitation; it means a lot for us, as it gives us a platform to speak. I am here as a Syrian Minister, not as a spokesperson. I sit inside a Ministry that deals every day with the people, not with a communiqué, so this will give you exactly the overall look.

I am Minister of Social Affairs and Labour, so we deal with two Ministries, but I also deal with social cohesion, civil peace and women’s rights—that is my mandate for my Ministry. That also means that I deal with orphans, children who are out of school and people with disabilities—of whom there is a very large number in a country that spent 13 years at war. Of course that means widows and returnees; families who came back to a house that is not there any more. It means work and the labour market, which is where dignity is either restored or lost. It is also social cohesion and building bridges between people because it is so important now, post conflict, to give time for people to have a proper channel for dialogue. Also very important and close to my heart is women’s participation and women’s role in Syria.

I will not describe a transition that is finished because it is definitely not. We have a constitutional declaration and a five-year path. We have a People’s Assembly that held its first session in July. We have brought the institutions of the north-east back into the state. I am very proud that my Ministry is the first to integrate with the Ministry in the north-east.

We have also had several challenges since the liberation of our country from the Assad regime. I will say that those things are being confronted, not buried. I read your terms of reference of course, and I am very happy that I can be here to talk with you about everything that you would like. I want also to talk about inclusion because everybody asks me about it. It is important to say that inclusion is not decorative in Syria. It is a fair question that I ask myself every day. Inclusion is not a photograph of Cabinet or Government formation; it is whether a Druze family in Suweida, an Alawite family on the coast and a Kurdish family in Hasakah can register for assistance and receive it under the same rules as anyone in Damascus. We all need to be equal under the law. That is the test I am working to succeed at, colleagues. It is slow and administrative; it is not glamorous, but it is the thing that turns a declaration into the state all Syrians deserve.

I want to state to your inquiry why supporting Syria is in Britain’s interest. I would put it very simply: a Syria where people can work, where children are at school and where minority families trust a Government office is a Syria whose people stay, rebuild and do not need anyone’s protection. That is the return on the investment for you, Your Excellency. I am happy to take any questions you want to ask, but do not make it very hard.

Q60        Chair: No one is fooled by the idea that you could not answer a hard question, so I want to ask you what practical steps are being taken towards drafting a permanent constitution? Who is going to oversee that?

Minister Kabawat: Of course, we have now a constitutional declaration; we just have the People’s Assembly now and we have many committees, one of which is on the constitution. In my Ministry now, every time I need to change a law or make an amendment, I do not do it alone in my closed room, Your Excellency. What we have is a participatory system. We take this amendment, this draft, all over Syria, to every city. I think that that is what will happen with the constitution. The constitution committee is now going to start on a new social contract. The important thing is that it will be the Members, but also they are going to have to share it with others. We will share it with other cities and go city to city to get their opinion and feedback.

Q61        Abtisam Mohamed: Hello, Minister. Thank you for joining us. You referenced earlier the importance of women and gender participation, and said that it is one of your priorities. How are women being involved in politics at a grassroots level? How is their involvement being nurtured?

Minister Kabawat: That question is very close to my heart, because it is what we have been fighting for for the past 14 years. Two things: first of all, I am not happy about the number of those who are Members of Parliament. There are not enough. But we know that the President is the one who later appointed more women to be part of the People’s Assembly.

Regarding women’s participation, we have been working very hard in my Ministry, and just last week we finished a meeting on UN Security Council resolution 1325. We want to start talking about that and implementing it. We want women to be more involved in politics, and not just talking, newspapers or articles—we want to walk the talk. In my Ministry, which has 14 directorates around Syria, half of them are now women. I appointed women to seven out of 14 and, just between us, not because they are women, but because they have great CVs and work very hard.

We know that it is not easy for women to work in politics in post-conflict and transition situations, but we need to have more women. We are talking with the grassroots level, from the bottom up. We are also having all the Members of Parliament, us Ministers and deputies, and everyone to start lobbying together with one voice to be stronger on getting more women to feel comfortable and trusted in being part of the process.

Q62        Abtisam Mohamed: Minister, you said that you are not happy with the numbers, and 21 have been appointed. How will you work to ensure that those numbers increase? What tangible actions will you press on the Government to ensure that there is better representation?

Dr Turkmani: Of course, we have to give women more capacity building, because we want to empower them. That is why we are now doing lots of courses and workshops. We want UN Security Council resolution 1325 to be better known. When we support women economically, when women are independent, they can be stronger, so that is what we do now. We are supporting them in the labour market and in vocational training. We do not accept any delegation, any course or any workshop if they do not have a 50% minimum of women on the courses, because knowledge is power, so the more knowledge and economic empowerment we give women, the more they can feel comfortable working in the public sphere. That is what we are doing.

Q63        Abtisam Mohamed: Earlier, you mentioned the importance of making sure that different minority communities across Syria have the right access to different services. What support is given to ensure that political representation reflects the different communities across Syria as well?

Minister Kabawat: I will talk a little about my Ministry and what we do. In my Ministry, we make sure that everyone is at the table. Let me give you a very simple example. When we did the integration with the north-east, I did not accept that only the Kurds could come to the table; I insisted that Assyrians and tribes should be at the table. As I say, you lead by example, so I will not accept anybody coming to talk about any file if it is not inclusive.

We are now trying to amend our civil society law, which is an old law, from 1958. We went through all the cities to get Alawites, Ismailis, Druze, Christians—everybody—to be in the meeting and now in the drafting committee. Overall, we have a Christian, we have Ismailis, Druze, Alawites, Sunnis—moderate Sunnis and Salafi. We make sure that everybody is at the table so that, when we get the last draft, everybody will be happy and will have ownership of this law. As I say, we make sure that inclusivity is not only in photographs, a code, or just saying something nice—“Oh, we are all together”—no. It is about working together. That is what we are trying to do. Do not forget, Your Excellency, that trust is very important. We lost trust during the years of the war, so now we are trying to build trust again between all the communities.

Q64        Abtisam Mohamed: Thank you; that is really helpful to hear. In relation to the humanitarian situation and refugee reintegration back into Syria, the Foreign Affairs Committee went to Lebanon and we spoke to many Syrian refugees there, women who said that they could not return to Syria because the schools were not there and they did not feel safe. What work is taking place to help refugees reintegrate back into Syria?

Minister Kabawat: First of all, I do not want any refugee to be outside Syria; I want everybody to come back to Syria. That is my message, and we have been talking about that. The problem is, and I have to be very honest with you, that we do not have the capacity to have schools or a clinic in every village. I can tell you that for all the women and mothers—my colleagues and people I know—if they want to go back to their village, the first thing that they want to have is a school. The start is a school. Education for them is the most important—“How do I get back to my village if I don’t have a place to live and I don’t have a school?” Those are the obstacles to their return.

Thank you for lifting the sanction and for making things better for us, but now we need to have more trust in the system, so that people can start transferring money and we can do some good investment. That is how we can get those women to go back to a village that has been completely destroyed. To rebuild, we need money and investment and we need people to start trusting the system so that we can go back. Don’t forget that it has only been one year since the lifting of the sanction, and now we have the technicality where lots of institutions do not send the money directly, and you know that there has been a very slow start to building the system. We need to build a real system, and we need to have a national social registry and national cash-based assistance. All that can give the refugees comfort to go back to their cities.

I have a problem related to disabilities. My Ministry is responsible for special needs, and we have now 27% of Syrians related to victims of war. We also need to build everything with access for all of them—access not only for the refugees to come back, but for Syrians with special needs to come back and be part of society.

Abtisam Mohamed: Thank you so much, Minister.

Minister Kabawat: Thank you for the questions.

Chair: We have limited time, and I want to make the most of it, if possible. Fleur Anderson has some questions about housing, and then we have some questions on justice, but I know that you have a plane to catch. Let me pass on to Fleur so that she can ask some questions about housing.

Minister Kabawat: It is okay. You can send me a private jet, and I can stay for three hours.

Chair: I don’t think my budget stretches to that, unfortunately.

Minister Kabawat: We would have the tax people after us. 

Q65        Fleur Anderson: Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Minister. I want to ask you about some housing issues. Lots of people who want to return are concerned about their property rights. How big an issue is that? It has been raised with me that there is ambiguity about property rights—specifically, law No. 10 and the laws used by the previous regime to seize the land of displaced persons. People want to know that they can go home and go to their house. Lots of Syrians have come my area of London, but want to return. What legislative steps is the Ministry taking to guarantee that returning refugees can securely reclaim their homes without fear of state expropriation?

Minister Kabawat: The Ministry of Justice is working very hard on this, and they have a committee. This is not part of my mandate, but nevertheless I can tell you that it is one of the biggest challenges for us. There is a committee to do it, and there are now lots of cases and a process.

Yes, we have big problems, but I can tell you that there are lots of solutions. The committee and many lawyers and judges are working on it. Do not forget that this is part of transitional justice too. People want to feel comfortable in their country and go back to their home. I can tell you that we went to lots of villages, and we could not even find the houses because they had all been destroyed. This is part of the transitional justice process. We now have two committees—one for the disappeared and one for transitional justice—and one of the mandates of the transitional justice committee is law No. 10.

Chair: Edward, I think you have questions on transitional justice.

Q66        Edward Morello: Your Excellency, I am interested in understanding the role of the National Commission for Transitional Justice and the broader work on transitional justice and missing people, and how that fits within the political transition that Syria is currently going through. 

Minister Kabawat: First of all, on the scale, as a starting point we have more than 130,000 missing persons. We have mass graves in Syria. We now have most of the families of the missing. It is not a policy file, Your Excellency; these are national wounds. There is grieving for this. The Government have stated transitional justice and accountability as priorities since day one. Since day one, when we did the national dialogue, the President recognised that this is an important file, and we have established mechanisms to pursue them.

MOSAL, my Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, supports the families of the missing—the survivors. Lots of families are affected, and we give them compensation and social assistance. We give them lots of psychological support and social administrative help. Of course, there are lots of children who cannot inherit because the wife does not know where her husband is, and so on. The most important thing now is to have documentation. We have to do identification capacity and civil registry. That is in the process for legal status work so that the family of the missing can exercise their right.

This is the most wounded file, and it is giving grief to everybody in Syria, because every family in Syria has somebody missing—people do not know where their husbands are. This is an important file. The Ministry of Justice, the National Commission for Transitional Justice, the National Commission for Missing Persons and our Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour work together on many files to give the families at least some comfort.

A few days ago, I was in a small village in the suburbs of Damascus called Deir al-Asafir. They have more than 200 people missing, and the women—the wives, the widows—are having meetings to talk about their grief. We can see that, if we want to have real reconciliation in the future and to have stability in Syria, we need to take care of those communities.

Q67        Edward Morello: I will ask one last question, if I may. While we have you here and you have the ear of the Foreign Affairs Committee, what is your message to the British Government? What would you like the UK to be doing to help Syria?

Minister Kabawat: First, we know that there has been 14 years of humanitarian assistance in Syria and we want to thank you for the years you supported us. We know how many families you saved from starvation.

Now, I think you need to trust us more. You need to trust the institutions. And we need you to help us in building and continuing to build a social protection system. This is for us very important. I am not being romantic or anything, but we know that you have been supporting us for the last 14 years, you have supported civil society and women’s groups, and we need you to support us, but directly now. I know that we need some third parties like the UN and others, and we appreciate their help, but also we need, step by step, to start building good relations with the Government and for you to trust us, so that we can start working together in building a system.

We do not want a humanitarian basket any more. We do not want you to give us aid—no, we want to build a system. We want to do a social protection system that can last. We want to have a sustainable future for Syria, and a sustainable future for Syria is not about giving us a humanitarian basket here or there and giving us funding here or there. It is about building a system together, building a policy together, building a country to respect the rule of law and all of us being equal under the law. Thank you.

Q68        Chair: Thank you so much for your time—I know that it is very limited. You have been so kind in giving us the time that you have between doing one thing and getting on a plane. I hope this is not the only time we get to speak to you, Your Excellency. I say this on behalf of all of us: we really do wish you and your country all the best.

Minister Kabawat: I need to ask you one last thing. When are you coming to Damascus to visit us?

Chair: It is a very good question, and one we are working on—please be assured, we are working on it.

Minister Kabawat: We would love to have you all in Damascus, so that you can meet all of us. Thank you again for your kindness.

Chair: It would be fantastic. Thank you.