BORIS Johnson was accused of washing his hands over the plight of the Syrian people.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, the SNP’s Ian Blackford told the Tory leader to take responsibility for the humanitarian crisis still unfolding.
His question came as fighting escalated in the country’s last rebel stronghold.
The regime launched an all out assault on the north-western Idlib province, which borders Turkey. The violence has sparked the largest mass displacement of civilians in the nine-year-old civil war. It’s estimated that at least 380 civilians have been killed and 700,000 people have been forced from their homes in the last three months alone.
Blackford told the Prime Minister: “In northern Syria, displaced women and their children are literally freezing to death.
READ MORE: Blackford: Tory Government is washing its hands of Syrian people
“There are reports of babies dying as a result of the extreme conditions, and 45,000 people remain stranded with nowhere to go.
“The Syrian war is considered to have caused the biggest wave of displacement since the second world war. Can the Prime Minister tell the House what responsibility his Government have taken for this humanitarian crisis?” Johnson told the MP: “As I think the whole House will know, and as I have said several times in the House, the UK leads the world in supporting humanitarian relief efforts in Syria.
“This country has committed £3.2 billion to that cause.”
Blackford said the Prime Minister had not answered the question.
He said: “In 2017, as Foreign Secretary, this Prime Minister enacted a policy of accepting the Syrian dictator Assad’s rule over the country.
“Assad has delivered death and destruction to his people – a man who has gassed his own civilians. The humanitarian situation has reached crisis point, and there are now fears of all-out war. Is the message that the Prime Minister wants to send from the House today that the UK Government are washing their hands of the Syrian people, and that he is content for Assad’s regime to continue enacting these atrocities?”
READ MORE: Five Turkish soldiers dead in Syrian government shelling attack
Johnson said Blackford had got it wrong about 2017, saying “this country and this Government have persistently called for the end of the Assad regime, and indeed have led the world in denouncing the cruelty of the regime towards Assad’s own people.”
“That has continuously been the policy of the British Government,” he added. Up to four million civilians are trapped Idlib, among them al Qaeda-loyal extremist rebels. Damascus is trying to retake the area, but bombing indiscriminately, with hospitals damaged too.
Refugees are fleeing towards Turkey, where the government is allied with some rebel groups opposed to al-Assad.
They launched a counter-attack on Tuesday after 13 Turkish soldiers were killed by Syrian shelling.
“If there is the smallest injury to our soldiers on the observation posts or other places, I am declaring from here that we will hit the regime forces everywhere from today, regardless of Idlib’s borders or the lines of the Sochi agreement,” the Turkish president Erdogan said, referring to a 2018 ceasefire accord.
“We will do this by any means necessary, by air or ground, without hesitating, without allowing for any stalling,” he added.
Meanwhile, Johnson dismissed the SNP’s Richard Thomson’s question at PMQs over a secret report into “alleged Russian interference in UK politics?”
Johnson said it would be released soon.
“Those of a conspiratorial cast of mind will be disappointed by its findings,” he added.
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