| Lord Ashdown |
Lord Ashdown of
Great Britain, the former Liberal Democrat leader, spoke out against arming
Syria’s rebels and called for pressure to be put on Qatar and Saudi Arabia to
cut off funding for arms.
“They do not need arms. It is an unchallenged figure that 3,500
tons of arms have been shipped in by way of Croatia with the assistance of the
CIA, funded by the Saudis, funded by the Qataris, going almost exclusively to
the more jihadist groups,” the former international high representative for
Bosnia said in a debate.
“I know where those weapons are coming from. They are the weapons
left over from the Bosnian war. They are being shipped out in large measure
through Croatian ports and airports and I can tell you they are making vast
sums for corrupt forces in the Balkans.”
Lord Ashdown described the rebels as “not a fit and proper
collection of people for us to be providing arms to”.
Britain and France favour arming the rebels, while in a change of
policy Washington recently announed it would supply direct miltiary aid to
opponents of President Bashar al-Assad. Officials have said they would select
“moderate rebels” for assistance.
Lord Ashdown said he knew of “no occasion” when a route to peace
was to provide more weapons.
He said Syria was the “front line in a wider conflict” involving
an attempt to build up a radicalised jihadist Sunni population to fight a war
against the Shia.
“This is about the preparations some are deliberately making to
have a wider religious conflict,” he said.
He said there was a “really serious diplomatic route” to take to
remove the “steam” out of the conflict.
“If it is the case that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are today funding
the very jihadists against which we are fighting, why are we not using
international pressure, the United States, the European Union, to persuade
Saudi Arabia and Qatar to stop, to prevent this?” he said.
“It seems to me we should not stumble towards arms when there is
diplomacy still to be played out.”
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