Hon Speaker, according to the UN Security Council, there are five permanent members who have veto power. So, regardless of what General Assembly members feel, believe and propose, as well as what four of the five permanent members of the Security Council and the rest of the nonpermanent members of the Security Council believe, one permanent member can veto any resolution if there is no consensus among the five.
That is the case with regard to Syria at this point. Trust among the permanent members was eroded by the manner in which the issues of Iraq and Libya were dealt with. We are in a situation where some of the permanent members are indeed mobilising, and are being frustrated, while others are of the view that there should be no regime change. What you are alluding to - military intervention, for instance - has to be done under the auspices of the UN Security Council.
If forces were to go in there, they should be peace-making forces. They should also be capable of keeping the peace once it has been attained. At the moment, it is close to civil war flaring up there. The appeal to them to observe a ceasefire has failed. Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been there. He has been in discussion with all parties and still the fighting is raging on. It is actually getting worse.
An intervention would have to be a peace-making intervention, so that anybody who runs around armed should be knocked on their heads and those who are in uniform should be pushed back into barracks. Conditions conducive to dialogue should then be put in place.
There are those kinds of agendas. Unfortunately, we are small fry. We are a big country with great people when it comes to issues of human rights. However, in the broader scheme of things and in the way the UN Security Council functions, we are nonpermanent members with no veto power. We can only use soft power to persuade those with the real veto power to find each other and a common meeting point. Indeed, an intervention in that situation is called for sooner than yesterday. Thank you. [Applause.]