» Wednesday, March 15, 2006Middle East
Asked if the Prime Minister had discussed the current situation in Palestine during his meeting with the Egyptian Prime Minister yesterday, the PMOS said that in terms of this particular situation the more important thing was that the Foreign Secretary had spoken yesterday to President Abbas, the Israeli foreign minister and Condoleezza Rice and that was important step in getting relations going forward. Obviously we valued our relationship with Egypt enormously and that was also important. Asked how we intended to move forward when the situation had deteriorated so rapidly in Jericho, the PMOS said that work would go on. What was also important was that we understood, as the Prime Minister had set out at PMQs very clearly, the reasons why we had taken the action we had. We had warned the Palestinian authorities several times, through demarches in December and January as well as in a letter last week, of the problems that were being caused for out monitors. We had to put the safety of our personnel high the list of our priorities. What was important was to first of all understand what had actually happened and why it happened and then to start discussions about how we resolved matters. Asked by Sky News what a demarche was, the PMOS said that it was an urgent diplomatic request to deal with a matter. Briefing took place at 17:00 | Search for related news Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says. |
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