- How do you think the issue of local conflicts should be addressed in the global era? Should they be resolved on the local level or should the international community take care of it?

- I think it very much depends on the conflict itself. In ideal world it is on the local level that the conflicts should be dealt with. And of course you have to have regional solutions whereby other actors who have influence within the region will be able to intervene. I remember Burundi conflict where Nelson Mandela from South Africa was able to help. But sometimes we have a conflict where neither local nor regional solutions work, and thereby the loss of lives and the humanitarian dimension becomes so significant that the international community has no choice. The international community carries responsibilities towards the people in other parts of the world as long as these responsibilities are discharged under the legal methods through legitimate organization that asks the international community to step forward. Then these conflicts have to be resolved internationally.

- How can international community establish when it is the moment to intervene into a conflict? If it is should happen when there are proofs of the crimes against humanity, why international community does not intervene in Syria?

- In each conflict the point of intervention depends on a couple of things. It depends on the knowledge we have of the extent of the loss of life or disaster, depends on the international will to do something and it depends again on the legitimacy of the correct institutions that are capable to intervene. If we pick for example the case of Syria, we know very well that there is a loss of life carried out in a very barbarous fashion by the dictatorial regime that does not respect its people. We know that the regional community is not able to intervene because of the divisions between different sects in Islam and different political systems. And the international community in an ideal world should absolutely be intervening. And you have to ask yourself why countries like Russia and China continue to maintain the veto in the UN SC even to impose sanctions against Syria. It is quite outrageous.

- In your opinion is Kosovo solution a sustainable one? Why?

- Secession is always quite tricky because the original states have deep wounds having lost a part of their territory. I think in Kosovo we really had no other solution but to go down the street. In my own view I think we should have held off the independence for a little longer. But now what we have to do is to give Serbia time and to give Kosovo time. And the only way they can do that without further violence is by having significant international presence in terms of UN peace-keepers that keep the two sides apart. I don’t think we should worry too much about sustainability; we have UN peace-keepers in Cyprus deployed for almost 50 years, in Kashmir for other 60 years. So this is a matter for the two parties but on some occasions also for the international community that should provide the time that it takes for the countries, may be when the second generations come to power, to be able to come and sit at the negotiations table. If you take Bangladesh and Pakistan in 1971, it was an example of secession. Pakistan was not able to threaten physically Bangladesh because the two countries are divided by India in the middle. But it took both countries some considerable period of time to come to terms to what happened. Pakistan apologized to Bangladesh for the wrong stand in the war that lead to the break-up came only in the last few years although it happened in 1971.

- Do you think after the twin attacks in Norway the security agenda should include the ideological dimension, i.e. we need to identify a broader range of destructive ideologies that may inspire the terrorism (i.e. not limiting the list to radical Islam)?

- I am a liberal, so while I recognize the security imperative I also recognize the freedom imperative. And for me the freedom imperative is at least as important, if not more important, in a sense than the security imperative in particular with isolated incidents. The problem with isolated incidents is that we are so shocked by them that we want to rush to take action. Sometimes what we need to do is to recognize that an individual gunman or a bomb-maker or even two or three will prevail in terms of their ideology if they provoke the over-reaction on our part. I think we have to maintain the balance between security and freedom.
I accept very much the suggestion that we need to broaden our agenda beyond radical Islam also taking into account other groups that are equally radical but they have some other ideology behind themselves. Of course, here in the United Kingdom we have experienced nationalism as a radical ideology over the years of the civil war in Northern Ireland. So we know very well about different movements and we recognize here that we have to be vigilant at the moment against three threats: one is Northern Irish terrorism which is still prevailing even in these days, second is Islamism and the third is these radical right wing neo-Fascist groups. What we try to do is to employ different strategies at all three levels and also on national and local levels, so we have to have a broad strategy to counter those types of terrorism which the state uses but we also have local strategies such as prevention, work with local communities and so on. I think it is the combination of both that you have to employ. But not certainly on the EU level. I would not want anything that goes beyond the European arrest warrant whereby we can have the deportation to the country where the crime has been committed. Beyond that I would not like to see a European agency that tells different countries how they should deal with terrorism or radical groups within their own borders. I think at the moment we know well enough of how to deal with it, what we really need is to be able to chase the person when they use our free movement to get to the other countries. And we should have, of course, very strong intelligence cooperation because that really is the key. If we work together as intelligence agencies fighting the same enemy in some cases that is the key to get into these groups before they can do the damage to us.

- As a participant of the 2011 Yaroslavl Global Policy Forum, could you, please, share your impressions? To which extent the themes of the sections corresponded to the level of international discussions? Do you think Global Policy Forum managed to establish its own identity?

- I was excited to be invited. The topics of the sections were interesting and they were extremely relevant for the today’s world. People were very interesting and there was a nice mix from across the world. The only thing I could add is that I wish we had more time for the discussion.
The organization of the Forum was fantastic. It was really well organized, everything was very smooth. The students who helped in organization were great; they were extremely professional, extremely friendly and really enthusiastic. I thought that in England you would not find the students so helpful, they would not be even there on time! In England the students always show up late, I don’t want to generalize but usually it is like this. Those young people with blue uniform were absolutely stars – smiling, professional, helpful all the time. And this was really fantastic. So, organization I think was simply great. I don’t think you could have improved it, it was a hundred percent.
So I think the forum should continue but you should make it a bit more interactive. I think it established its own identity. Global Policy Forum is obviously smaller than Davos which makes it more interesting in my opinion.

By Yulia Netesova

Kishwer Falkner

Entered the House of Lords in 2004 as Baroness Falkner of Margravine, as the first Muslim parliamentarian for the Liberal Democrats. In the House of Lords she has served as the Liberal Democrats spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, Justice and Communities and Local Government. She has been Chairman of the Liberal Democrats Parliamentary International Affairs Committee in the House of Lords since the formation of the Coalition Government in 2010.
Born in Pakistan, Kishwer lived and worked in the Middle East, UK and the USA before gaining degrees in International Relations from the London School of Economics and the University of Kent. She has worked for the Commonwealth Secretariat and as the Liberal Democrats International Director. She has also held fellowships at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and at St Antony’s College, Oxford University exploring the relationship between Islam, liberal democracy and freedom.
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