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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now at least 12,000 in Syria are dead and a million and a half, the estimate is, need urgent help but without the support of Russia or China, the world cannot offer much more than tough talk. Let’s say a very good morning to the Foreign Secretary, William Hague and it is a fairly blunt question, Mr Hague, how many more civilians have to die before they are offered protection in Syria?

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well of course we are doing what we can first of all on a humanitarian basis to help people. You were speaking earlier about the number of people who need aid assistance of some sort or other, one of the great difficulties is getting aid to them where fighting is going on and where the regime doesn’t provide access but the United Kingdom has already provided £8.5 million of medical supplies, emergency supplies to get to those people we can get to through international agencies. Now on the wider question then of where we go from this appalling situation where people are dying in large numbers on a daily basis, we continue to do everything we can to get the international community together on this. It is one of the reasons I’ve been to Russia in the last two weeks, we continue to talk to the Russians and Chinese all the time because we want a stronger international position and I welcome in principle the Russian proposal for an international conference but of course it would have to be a conference that would really lead to a change and not just buy time for the regime to kill more people. Now that is the way forward, to implement the Annan plan, to have international support for it, that is the way to reduce the number of killings most effectively rather than increase the number of killings through even greater violence.

DM: Okay, there is a lot in that I want to probe further on. First of all on that conference proposed by the Russians, an international conference and they say including Iran.

WH: Well that’s one of the difficulties. Of course Hillary Clinton has said from the United States point of view it would be unacceptable to have Iran there, I have said it would be hard to see how it would be workable with Iran there because we want to know that if a conference is held it would lead to progress, it would be likely to lead to a political transition in Syria, that it wouldn’t just be as I say for the regime to buy time. Now Iran is a country that has actively supported the Assad regime, we know they have given them technical support, they’ve given them advice on how to suppress protest and they probably support them in many other ways that we can’t see so a country there at the table that is there just to preserve the Assad regime and thereby continue the killing wouldn’t be a very good basis for such a conference but of course we will keep talking to the Russians about how we can do this because international unity behind a plan, behind an actual plan of action and a transition, and Syria is as I say – the only way to actually bring the killings to an end, every other solution of any kind to the Syrian crisis involves a lot more death.

DM: But if, and of course it is a major if, you get the Russians and the Chinese on side, where do you envisage things going from there? That aid you talk about for instance would that be delivered to a protected population by perhaps armed forces from NATO countries?

WH: Well if we had international agreement insisting on the Annan plan being implemented then of course there would be access for the whole of Syria for monitors who are currently being shot at by supporters of the regime, to monitor a ceasefire. Armed forces would be pulled back from populated areas in Syria, a political process in which Syrians can decide their own future would begin and there would be access to the whole country for aid agencies. Now questions of the kind you’re asking arises if we can’t do any of that, then what do we do if the Annan plan fails completely, because obviously time is running short but in the meantime we have to continue to try to achieve a united position with Russia on the way forward. If all of that fails of course we will be returning to the Security Council for further measures, we’ll be asking all the countries and the friends of Syria to step up the isolation of the regime, we would be greatly increasing further our support for the opposition but all of that I think would be second best to an agreed way forward.

DM: But you do agree with the Russians on many points about Syria, don’t you? You agree of course on the issue of aid, you agree in terms of the analysis of the situation, as Sergei Lavrov says Syria is a complicated, multi-confessional state, it is very difficult to intervene there. Do you agree with them that military intervention is eternally out of the question?

WH: Well I think we don’t know how things are going to develop. Syria is, as I’ve said in the last couple of weeks, on the edge of a collapse or of a sectarian civil war and so I don't think we can rule anything out but it is not so much like Libya last year where we had of course a successful intervention to save lives, it is looking more like Bosnia in the 1990s, of being on the edge of a sectarian conflict in which neighbouring villages are attacking and killing each other. So I don't think we can rule anything out but I do think that it does mean, as you say in your question, that there is an increasing commonality of analysis with Russia, the Russians are concerned about that scenario, I found that on my visit to Moscow and my Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, has said this weekend that the Russians are not wedded to Assad being in power, they just want Syrians to decide their own future. Well that’s exactly what we want but they can’t decide their own future while they are being killed, their bodies burned, the monitors shot at so it requires Russia to use its leverage to say to the Assad regime, you have to follow the Annan plan and if we call a conference together it will be about ensuring that such a plan is fully implemented so that there is a cessation of violence and a political process in Syria.

DM: Finally, a couple of other matters on your plate this Sunday morning, Foreign Secretary. Can you update us on the government’s plans to help out British citizens in Spain and indeed other eurozone countries should there be a banking collapse?

WH: Well we welcome what we’ve heard about the eurozone loans to the Spanish banking system over the weekend, clearly there are further details of that still to be decided and announced but we have been asking for the eurozone to take decisive measures to stabilise itself in terms of the European Central Bank supporting the banking system, eurozone countries being prepared to work together in a closer way, integrate themselves more closely fiscally and for instance by having Eurobonds, so we welcome that. In terms of the position of British citizens in other countries, we give our travel advice as normal and we have a full range of contingency plans but I never think it’s very helpful to go into details about those contingency plans because of course sometimes we have to plan for pretty unlikely contingencies and I don’t want to let people think that some of the things we plan for are likely to happen.

DM: No, but it would be reassuring for the people that are planning to go there or perhaps people living there on meagre pensions, knowing they could get some hard and ready cash out if the bank they have got theirs in closes.

WH: Well this is why we want to see of course the banking system stabilised, confidence in the banking system and the best way to do that is of course to support the kind of measures that are being discussed this weekend and that is very much the first line of defence but we do have contingency plans, as I say I don't think it’s helpful to go into those contingency plans on a regular basis.

DM: Okay and can I just ask you finally about Euro 2012. We know about the ministers boycott of the group stages of the games but presumably you are keeping your options open of going to Ukraine if England reaches the finals.

WH: Well anything after those group stages is hypothetical at this stage. We hope the team do very well but the Minister of Sport won’t be attending the early stages, that has been announced and nobody has been invited yet to the later stages, we don’t know who is going to be in them so we will keep that under review.

DM: So either you are going to Ukraine or you’re not come what may, it doesn’t matter whether England make the later stages, you just say we’re not going whatever happens.

WH: Well situations can change, we have concerns about Ukraine, it is possible for the Ukrainian government to improve the situation so we will, if we get to the later stages we will announce what we will do then but it is very clear what we have announced about the group stages which, as I say, all that anybody is invited to at this stage.

DM: So you only go, ministers only go, the Prime Minister only goes to the final if Yulia Tymoshenko is released?

WH: Well we’re not laying down specific conditions, I think if there is an improvement we’ll know the improvement when we see it, we’ll all be able to judge that when we see it. That may be unlikely over this relatively short time scale so I don’t want to hold out any prospect of this position changing as things stand at the moment but as I say, all we can do at the moment is announce our position for the games that we know are taking place.

DM: Okay, Foreign Secretary, thank you very much indeed. William Hague there.

WH: Thank you.