The Official Website
From the embers of one war spark the flames of another.
There can be no doubt that the 2003 Iraq war and the insurgency that followed has been an important contributor to the civil war now devastating Syria – a reason, if another was needed, to forensically examine Tony Blair’s actions of more than a decade ago. …
It was the use of chemical weapons in Syria – in the shape of a horrendous attack in the suburbs of Damascus in the summer of 2013 – that first stirred the world to action. Under a Russian/American deal, reached with United Nations support, the bulk of President Bashar al-Assad’s stockpile of sarin and other chemical warfare components has …
Territorial disputes are only solved after long, hard negotiations. The only recent exception in Europe has been the very successful velvet divorce conducted without referendums or threats of violence by politicians in what was Czechoslovakia. Let us not forget either that that was achieved in the teeth of opposition from European governments and the Russian Federation who wanted …
The conference on Syria planned for January 22 in Switzerland, convened by US Sec- retary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, is the one hope left for a quick ceasefire. Yet that will be very difficult to achieve.
On humanitarian grounds, a genuine, monitored ceasefire is imperative — but re- alpolitik, some will argue, means there can be …
Lord Owen suggests partition in Syria is becoming an increasingly inevitable outcome as a change in the balance of the elements of the Shia grouping takes place on the ground. He warns that a 1919 Treaty of Paris carve-up must be avoided and that solutions must come from within the region.
For the full interview on CNN International please click here…
LONDON — The eyes of the world are focused on the U.N. in New York this week in an amazing turnabout in international politics. We could have been in the midst of a Middle East war with the U.S. and France having attacked Syria, triggering resumed fighting across the border of southern Lebanon and Israel. Instead, the U.N. is …
Speaking on LBC Lord David Owen former Foreign Secretary demanded that “The UK Government table a resolution in the Security Council this weekend for an urgent debate on the immediate removal of all chemical weapons from Syria under UN inspection teams with representatives on those teams from the five permanent members.”
“Let us see whether China would veto such a resolution, whether Russia …
On Thursday in St Petersburg world leaders have an opportunity to break the deadlock in the Security Council over Syria between the Permanent Five, China, France, the UK, the US and Russia. The voice in the margins of the G20 meeting that needs to be heard on Syria, above all, is that of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. …
