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Peter Ford (born June 1947) is a retired British diplomat who was ambassador to Bahrain from 1999–2003 and to Syria from 2003–2006.He has become known to a wider public for his uncritical stance towards the Syrian regime and for his directorship in the British Syrian Society, run by Assad's father-in-law Dr Fawaz Akhras.
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Former ambassador to syria sir peter ford speaks to sky news on syria
Life
Ford was educated at Weston Point Community Primary School, Helsby Grammar School and The Queen's College, Oxford.
Having finished his Arabic studies he worked in Beirut, Riyadh, Paris and Cairo before being appointed British ambassador to Bahrain as well as Syria from 2003-06.
Retiring from the Diplomatic Service in 2006 he became Representative of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA in the Arab world.
Positions
In 2003, as ambassador to Bahrain, Ford says he sent critical memos to London before the Iraq War. Later he regretted not to have been more outspoken. In his time in Damascus (2003-2006), he says he distanced himself more and more from the official policies.
After 2006, he has been criticised as a defender of the Assad regime in Syria. In 2016, he suggested opposition forces were responsible for an attack on a UN humanitarian convoy in September 2016 which led to the deaths of 10 humanitarians. A UN panel of inquiry said the attack was conducted from the air, and only Syrian and Russian air forces were operating in the area. The UN panel stated "that it did not have evidence to conclude that the incident was a deliberate attack on a humanitarian target".
Looking back on the British policy towards Syria since 2011 he accused the government of lies and political mistakes from the very beginning, thus aggravating the situation in Syria. He argued that Prime Minister David Cameron should have either committed British forces or refrained from encouraging opposition forces from mounting a doomed campaign causing many civilian deaths.
In his opinion, the fall of the Assad regime would lead to the massacres of Christians, Shias, Alawites, Druze and other minorities.
Subsequently, on the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, he commented to the BBC that "there [had] been no investigation.. not a dodgy dossier - we've not seen any dossier whatever this time". Ford called to mind instances of false evidence during the war of Iraq. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) released its report on the April 4 chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun in July 2017. The OPCW concluded the attack used sarin, a nerve agent, or sarin-like substances, confirming what had been reported in May.
Ford participated in the EuroCE conference on the future of Syria from 5 to 6 April 2017 which was criticised by dissidents as pro-Assad, because among the speakers there were Syrian politicians and apologists of the Assad government. At the conference Ford described the British policy as "incoherent and grotesque", and accused the British government of being among those in the front rank of destroying Syria. He added that following the Iraq War he had been under regular instructions to remonstrate with the Syrians over the flow of jihadis into Iraq, but said he understood the Syrian regime's point of view.