Downing Street Says » G8-Middle East Crisis

Asked whether the Prime Minister had offered to go to the Middle East to prepare the groundwork, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that he had not yet spoken to the Prime Minister but he suspected that this was a result the live mike situation. The Prime Minister would be giving a press conference within the hour so people could ask him directly then.

Asked whom "they" referred to in the President’s live mike situation, in other words where would the pressure on Syria come from, the PMOS said, without offering a commentary on the alleged remarks of the President, that he would try to land safely on the territory covered by last night’s G8 communiqué. The first paragraph of page two, said that, those extremist elements and those that supported them could not be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider conflict. The extremists had to immediately halt their attacks. He had also been saying all week that every country in the region had to play their part in calming the situation. Therefore everybody must be seen to be playing his or her part in calming the situation. The G8 had played its part by analysing and objectively listening the various elements. We would keep working at this problem as the Prime Minister’s meeting with Kofi Annan had demonstrated. Equally others needed to work at the problem from their perspectives as well. The G8 had sent a very strong, united and detailed message.

Asked about the Middle East, the PMOS said that on the way out to St Petersburg in his in-flight briefing he had said that the G8 needed to send a strong message to the region about what needed to happen. That had been done in the detailed G8 communiqué. He had also said that we needed to have a process. We now had a UN representative in Lebanon who would report back to the UN on Thursday. We also had a concrete proposal for a stabilisation force that had formed the central part of last night’s G8 communiqué, which the Prime Minister and UN Secretary General had developed this morning. The G8 had outlined the conditions under which it believed there could be an end to the violence on all sides and it had outlined what the process to bring that about were. Therefore any suggestion that this in some way lacked leadership or specificity was wrong. Thursday when the UN representative reported back to the UN would be the next major step in how this developed.

Asked what the UN stabilisation force look like, the PMOS said that we would know more after the UN had met on Thursday to discuss the UN representative’s report. The basic idea of it was that it should be a force, which was there to make sure that the missiles into Israel stopped, that UN resolution 1559 was observed and implemented and that there was a sustainable peace. A quick fix would not resolve this. It needed to be a sustainable solution and this could only be the case if there were reassurances on the ground that Israel would not be the subject of continual bombardment. The make up of UNIFIL was Ghanain and Indian but in terms of the make up this new force it was for the UN to decide.

Asked whether this force would implement 1559, the PMOS said that the precise role of this force would be a matter for discussion at the UN on Thursday and he would not get ahead of that process. It was right and proper that the G8 had identified what it believed to be necessary to achieve sustainable peace. The G8 had been very clear that UN resolutions should be implemented on the ground. That said it was also right and proper that the UN discussed it, as the Prime Minister had demonstrated this morning, but ultimately it was the UN who would decide the make-up and role of the force.

Asked whether the British would contribute to the force, the PMOS said that the UN would decide the make up of the UN force and he would not speculate on British involvement at this stage. Traditionally although we had provided technical assistance we had not been a major part of forces in this area. Asked whether the stabilisation force would create the ceasefire or whether it would be a force to maintain the ceasefire once it had been established, the PMOS said that it would depend on the analysis of the UN representative’s report. At a summit such as this you could not simply pull a lever make things happen on the ground, but you could outline what you believed were the realistic conditions necessary to allow a sustainable peace. This was what the G8 had done. However, the precise way this would be turned into a reality had to be a result of the UN’s assessment and then the decisions it took based on that assessment, which would come later in the week.

Put that this was premature, the PMOS said that the reality was that nobody had suggested that the force was available today or would go in today, but equally we had to address all the issues that were outlined in the G8 communiqué. There were detailed, practical and concrete. Asked what role the Prime Minister played in the communiqué, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had played a very important role in finalising the communiqué, but the communiqué belonged to the G8.

Put that there had been differing interpretations of the communiqué, not least the US, the PMOS said that the precise nature of how the ceasefire was achieved depended on the analysis of the UN representative. The advantage of the G8 was that it brought different perspectives and different regional relations. We all wanted the same outcome and the G8 could use its influence to get there. The G8 communiqué outlined each of the elements that had to happen. Asked how the G8 could influence parties to exercise restraint, the PMOS said, as both the communiqué and Kofi Annan had said, that we wanted to avoid civilian casualties in Lebanon and Israel. People should not be in doubt that the G8 wanted an end to civilian causalities and hostilities as soon as possible. Asked how soon the stabilisation force might go in, the PMOS said that the honest answer was that you had to take this step by step and first the UN had to hear the analysis of the UN representative and discuss how to put together the force. Asked who was in touch with Hezbollah, the PMOS said that they were not a government. Each G8 member had relationships with various governments in the region and they were in touch with those governments through the usual channels.

Asked whether the Prime Minister was happy with the speed and efficiency of the efforts to evacuate British residents from Lebanon, the PMOS said that this morning we had used the 3 British Helicopters that had flown Javier Solana into Beirut to evacuate 40 people who were judged to be vulnerable. Contingency plans had been drawn up and were being updated on an almost hourly basis. The necessary facilities and assets were being put in place to evacuate people if that proved to be necessary. However, given the situation on the ground there was a balance to be weighed up between the risks of evacuation and the dangers of staying put. People needed to keep listening to BBC World Service and keep in touch with the embassy. We would continue to update the situation on an hourly basis.

Asked about democracy in Russia, the PMOS pointed out that the Prime Minister had opened the British Council when he had arrived in St Petersburg. The Prime Minister had also contributed to the discussion on democracy last night, which had been initiated by President Putin. As we had said in the past we did not hide the fact that we had concerns, equally however we very strongly believed that it was right and proper to engage with Russia on a broad range of issues.

Asked about trade, the PMOS said that conversation was going on in the room as this briefing happened so the Prime Minister would be the best source when he gave his press conference within the hour. Asked if the meeting of the six trade representatives in Geneva was a signal that there had been some movement, the PMOS said that the best person to guide them on where the trade discussions had got to today would be the Prime Minister, not least because the trade meeting was still in progress.

Asked if the Prime Minister had raised the consular case of the entrepreneur with visa difficulties with President Putin, the PMOS said that he would check.

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» Monday, July 17, 2006

G8-Middle East Crisis

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