Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is a pity that we are having this discussion because of what is going on. There is so much I would have liked to have been able to tease out. When Dr. Hashemi was talking about the Kobani model, he meant the military aspect of it. I have a question about the Kurdish people because they have lost out in so many other conflicts. They have been to the fore in contributing and when the conflict is over, they are left with less land than they had when they started out. I would be interested to hear his comments on that.

Dr. Hashemi referred to removing President Assad, but in my view he is not moving anywhere. Is there any possibility of negotiating with him? Dr. Hashemi mentioned the Syrian National Council and I wonder where it is at this particular stage. When Dr. Hashemi spoke about moderate government, I thought of Libya and the overthrow of Gadaffi. I think people would agree that Libya is in a worse state now than it was under Colonel Gadaffi. Libya is in an appalling state now after all of their attempts at moderate government. I think because of the situation in Syria and ISIS it is not getting the attention that it should get. He mentioned Iran, which is a major player, but because they were excluded from the talks initially, they no longer are involved. I think was a mistake.