Mr. Robin Yassin-Kassab:

I am saying that even if one does not care about Syria, this is urgent for Europeans. We cannot separate foreign policy from security policy, domestic policy and European policy in this issue. That is what I am saying.

I still think it was unfortunate. It was not the committee that invited them but it is unfortunate that they came in.

However, I think it is good that everybody hears from all kinds of groups in Syria, including people who do not like the revolution and people still loyal to Assad, but not from official propagandists. This is a state-organised thing and this specific person has threatened things that would get most Muslims banned from ever arriving in Europe.

I was asked what "It has been noted" means. It was not a threat. It simply means that it has been noted. I know that, yesterday, Asharq Al-Awsatnewspaper, maybe the biggest pan-Arab newspaper, and Al-Quds Al-Arabinewspaper were reporting on it. I know of those two reports, and I have heard from people saying they are shocked and disgusted by this - that is all. It is not just this committee, it is also Trinity College, and I think this person has gone off to sign some declaration against extremism today, which is a sad joke. That is what "It has been noted" means. It just means that Arabs and Muslims know about this and some of them are very upset about it.

In response to the issues the committee went over with the delegation this morning, in particular the issue of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, I do not have a problem with what they said. I agree that it is not terribly reliable. The one I quoted earlier was the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which I believe is very reliable. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is very often quoted on the BBC and by all kinds of people. It is based in Manchester, I think, or London, and it is really a one-man affair. Sometimes its information seems good and sometimes it seems very strange. I do not think it has the people on the ground to be absolutely sure of the information it comes up with. I do not know whose side it is on but I do not disagree with what the delegation said in that respect, namely, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is not terribly reliable.

On sanctions, I did not see the session this morning or the transcript of proceedings, but I gather that what they came to say was that sanctions are hurting poor people in Syria so they should be stopped. The sanctions on Syria are not like the sanctions on Iraq in the old days. The sanctions on Iraq were total blanket sanctions which hurt everybody. One could not have a pencil in a classroom in Iraq because the graphite might be dual use and could be used in weapons production. The sanctions on Syria are nothing like that in that they are very targeted. What is hurting the poor in Syria is Assad's war and, specifically, starvation sieges. There are also Assad's checkpoints which charge bribes and so on. If a bag of tea goes through a checkpoint, then the price dramatically increases on the other side because the man in charge of that checkpoint takes his big cut on it, and that happens several times, so prices are inflated. It is because of checkpoints and because of the regime's behaviour and corruption. The sanctions are not hurting the poor; the Syrian regime is hurting the poor. I think the sanctions should be expanded.

While I do not want to go off-topic, I believe Russia needs to be sanctioned much more than it is at the moment, again, in the interests of Europe, not just for the sake of Syria. I know Ukraine is a complicated issue and there is all kinds of blame to go around, but, nevertheless, having Putin annex part of the country unilaterally without any negotiations and promoting a hot war in another third of the country, in the heart of Europe, is something very dramatic which we should be taking more seriously.

Putin is attacking the European Union through Syria by deliberately creating tens of thousands of new refugees and, at the same time, having very good relations with and, in some cases, funding right-wing anti-immigrant parties throughout Europe. This is designed to make the EU break up. That is his policy; it is not a mistake that he is doing these things at the same time. Therefore, I believe sanctions should be expanded. I do not want a war with Russia. I also do not want a war with Iran, which is why I wish that economic and diplomatic means would be used much more than they are being used at present. Certainly, the idea of opening new business with countries like Iran when it is directly threatening the stability of the Middle East and, therefore, of Europe does not seem sensible to me.

In the context of there being no moderate opposition left, obviously I disagree. It is true there is less moderate opposition now than there was a year ago, and a year ago there was less than two years ago, and so on. Every day there is a bit less moderate opposition because people are being driven out of the country. In many cases, it is the better educated, more able people who leave as they have more money or skills, such as language skills, and they are better able to get out. The people stuck in Syria very often are the poorest of the poor, because one needs money to get out of the country. Even to get to a refugee camp in Jordan or Turkey, a person needs a couple of hundred dollars to pay a smuggler to get them through checkpoints and over a border. Many people do not have that money.

A few years ago there were over 700 local councils in Syria. That then went down to 400, which is the latest figure I have. After the latest advances of Assad and his friends, it is probably less than that, at something like 350. These, by definition, are moderate and non-ideological. There is a huge range of different kinds of councils. Some of them simply have the heads of families or tribal leaders in a neighbourhood nominate somebody from their family, and that person will be on the council. In other areas it is a straightforward democratic election, such as we recognise. In other areas it is even more complicated than that, in that all the farmers, or shopkeepers, or students vote among themselves for one representative, so there are representatives from different trade and social backgrounds, and so on. The members of these councils might be communists, Islamists or democrats. In a way, it is irrelevant because the reason they have been chosen for the position is usually that they are known to be a reliable person and have a specific skill, or know something about, say, fixing the electricity or getting the water back on after it has been bombed, or about education, so they can organise underground schools away from the bombs. These are non-ideological organisations and they are working in a democratic way. They are self-organised communities, working on practical things. They are not working on the ultimate aim of spreading Islam all over the globe; they are working on getting the electricity back on, educating the children and getting the health service working in difficult circumstances.

What more than that does one want? There are still tens of newspapers, television stations and radio stations in a country which Riad al-Turk called a "kingdom of silence", where six years ago there were no independent newspapers, radio stations or television stations, and if one published anything that was not official, one would be in a hell of a lot of trouble. The moderate opposition does exist. It exists inside the country, under fire, it exists in refugee camps and in cities like Gaziantep and Istanbul in Turkey, and nowadays it exists in Berlin and places around Europe as well.

Very many of those people want to go home. The overwhelmingly vast majority of Syrians want to go home. Not only that, if they have to be outside their own country, they would rather be in Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey than in Europe in most cases. The reason they are risking the journey across the sea is that they do not have any opportunities in those places. In the camps there is no education for their children, no work and no future. They can put up with that situation for a year or two, if they think they are going to go home in the end. However, when it goes on for five or six years, and it looks like they are never going to go home, then people think, "What can I do? I am going to risk everything to try for a future in which I can at least work and educate my children."

These people want to go home and build again but it is not safe for them. It looks like it will not be for a long time.

I do not like Russia's definition of moderate opposition and local peace agreements. Its definition of moderate opposition is somebody who will do business with it. Anybody who will not do business with Russia or wants it or Assad out is by its definition a terrorist. That includes the democrats who I have been talking about. I do think Russia is the wrong person to be going about the idea of local peace agreements. There is a difference between peace and pacification. What we are getting at the moment is pacification. There will be some kind of peace, to an extent, in certain areas because one can do that. One can bomb the hell out of an area, make 90% of the people leave and then force the 10% left to sign some deal whereby they will be quiet, hand over their weapons and bow their heads. That is not long-term peace, however. It does not stop the long-term insurgency, which will continue, the jihadism or anything else.

Local peace agreements, however, would be part of the real solution. I am not looking for a total victory of the revolution. Even a year ago that would have been unrealistic to expect. For example, the Alawi towns near the coast, which are around the president's home village, are completely loyal to the regime. There is no point trying to take over those villages as it would be an imposition on those people. If those people want to stick with the system they have, then they should be allowed to stick with it. If Assad had been driven out of Damascus and went back to his home village, one would imagine that he and his generals would have taken weapons with them to defend their villages. Then one would have had local agreements whereby over ten years every group would have kept their weapons but stopped shooting at each other. Then, maybe after a certain point, they could start travelling into each other's areas and do business with each other. Local peace agreements would have been an important part of a solution if we were looking at a real solution.

Decentralisation would also have been an important part of a real solution. That would have meant more power to the local councils which had begun to build up. Even in the areas which are still with the regime, the people there may want to build their own councils. Syria has polarised communities and areas because of what has happened. If there was more decentralisation, in a conservative place, like Deir ez-Zor or Hama, one could have a local government which could decide to ban alcohol, while in another town with a larger Christian-Alawi mixed community, a more liberal, modern, urban community, its council may decide to allow alcohol and have nightclubs. The two communities could still be living together under the Syrian umbrella. It would help Kurds and Arabs live together because many people in the Rojava areas under the PYD, Democratic Union Party, want some form of autonomy. I think they should be able to have that.

Is there any chance of going back to United Nations-led process? Eventually, if there was going to be a real solution to this, of course, there have to be negotiations and the United Nations would be involved. United Nations negotiations over recent years have not gone anywhere. People keep saying there is no military solution in Syria. Unfortunately, Assad, Russia and Iran do not agree with that. They believe there is a military solution and they are prosecuting it. One is not going to get serious negotiations until the military balance is changed. That is not the same as saying there is a military solution and the outside world should get rid of Assad by bombing him. Instead, there needs to be pressure to make it more expensive for Russia and Iran, not for Assad because he has already lost. Their occupation of Syria has to be made much more expensive diplomatically and mainly economically. This is where Russia is weak. Its economy is not in a strong state. If people in the West wanted to, they could put a lot more strain on the Russian economy. If the military or economic equation was really changed, then they would feel they should negotiate and then there could be a serious negotiation, which would be good for everybody concerned.