Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ireland has advocated in this area. We worked, for example, with the Netherlands, which took the lead on a motion at the UN Human Rights Council, UNHRC, to insist on an international, independent inspection team to investigate accusations of war crimes. That created quite a lot of tension at the UNHRC but Ireland was very strongly supportive of what the Netherlands was trying to do. It is also important to say that there are two sides in this war; in fact, there are many more than two sides. This is not a one-sided conflict whereby those who are sponsoring one side in this war are responsible for all of the atrocities. This is a horrible, nasty civil war where both sides need to be scrutinised by the international community and forced into a negotiated solution and that is the approach that Ireland has taken.

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