ISTANBUL
Britain's first Cabinet member ShahidMalik from Labor Party has said that the history would prove that Turkey's Syria policy was right.
"Turkey can hold its head pretty high... History will show in the middle and long term that Prime Minister Erdogan was right," Malik told the Anadolu Agency.
He said like everybody else who believed in democracy, Turkey had been saying on Egypt that "a democratically and rightly elected president could only be removed by ballot box, not by bullets."
"I have sympathy with Prime Minister Erdogan's approach. He has been very sincere to his beliefs, convictions on Egypt and equally on Syria," said Malikand added, "History will show in the middle and long term that he was right on these issues."
- West's problem of consistency and selectiveness
Malik said the West fundamentally got a problem of consistency and selectiveness.
"Muslim world criticize us mostly of being selective and inconsistent. Fifty people died in Libya, we had no-fly zone, we had NATO, Libya was liberated. A hundred thousand people died in Syria, no NATO, no no-fly zone."
Malik emphasized that the West had also driven the Syrian opposition into the hands of extremists.
"We should have filled that vacuum, we should have been quick, we should have saved lives. History will judge us badly."
- UK parliament voting on military action: lack of understanding
Commenting on the British parliament's vote against military action in Syria, Malik said it did not succeed because Prime Minister David Cameron has failed to make it clear "what he wanted to do and why he wanted to do so and how long he wanted to do it."
Malik stated that the parliament behaved cautiously because of experiences from Iraq war in 2003.
Asserting that the pretext for the Iraqi war -- Saddam's alleged WMD arsenal -- was disproved at the end of the war, Malik said, "It is my own firm belief that the British parliament, if the UN inspectors were saying that chemical weapons were used by Assad, would have been much warmer to the idea of a military action."
Nevertheless Malik related the no-vote to "rush and overeagerness to please the US", as well as to the lack of understanding between Cameron and the British MPs.
"The case was different with Syria as it is smaller than Iraq, Libya, but the parliament did not know what was asked."
- Lack of political will for limited attack
Giving the example of Kosovo, Malik said, "We do not need UN backing. We need people believing in a limited attack, to convince those who can do it."
"At the moment there is not enough political will."
Malik also said Assad could not have a role in the future of Syria, adding that he had to be judged by International Criminal Court (ICC).
"He is not somebody we can trust. The only place for Assad is in the bin."
Shahid Malik is a British Labour Party politician who became the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dewsbury in 2005. In 2007 he became Britain's first Muslim Minister as International Development Minister, and subsequently served as a Justice Minister, Home Office Minister and as Minister for Race, Faith and Community Cohesion. He lost his seat in the House of Commons at the 2010 general election.
