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Tony Blair says Quartet is working on setting a timetable for the parties to resume talks
Friday, Sep 23, 2011 in Office of Tony Blair, Office of the Quartet Representative
Quartet Representative Tony Blair appeared on BBC Radio 4's World at One live from UN General Assembly Week in New York. The following is a transcript of the interview conducted by the BBC's Shaun Ley.
PRESENTER
Well, Tony Blair himself is also in New York. He’s on the line. Mr Blair, welcome.
TONY BLAIR
Thank you.
PRESENTER
Do you just want to pick up on that point that Jeremy was raising there, the concerns that are being expressed by some on the Palestinian side about your neutrality, and indeed about the whole approach adopted by the Quartet?
TONY BLAIR
Yes. Look, the important point to realise is this: the Quartet is not trying to, and I’m certainly not trying to, prevent the Palestinians come to the United Nations, lodge their application for statehood. They are perfectly entitled to do so. The point that I’m making, and this is frankly a disagreement with some at least on the Palestinian side, and indeed some on the Israeli side, is that I’m saying you can pass whatever resolution you like at the United Nations or in the Security Council, it doesn’t actually deliver you a state on the ground, in the West Bank and Gaza, and, if you don’t have a negotiation, whatever you do at the UN is going to be deeply confrontational. Because the issue there – just so that you understand it – I mean, the Americans won’t veto this today. It will go into the UN machinery. It will then be deliberated by a committee on admissions to the UN. If you manage to get a negotiation going, then it gives quite a context and colour to such a deliberation, because then you’ve got a negotiation, which is, in the end, the only thing that can deliver you a state.
PRESENTER
But don’t you have a negotiation, if you like, on equal terms, if it’s one that involves two groups of people who are both recognised by the United Nations as states?
TONY BLAIR
When you actually get down to the detail of territory, security, Jerusalem, refugees, water, all the issues, to be absolutely frank about it, it doesn’t make a great deal of difference whether you’re designating someone as a state or as not a state. The Palestinian Authority and President Abbas are perfectly capable of negotiating with the Israelis. I understand, by the way, their frustration. I mean, that part of it, I totally understand. You know, we’ve had stopping and starting over a number of years but one of the things I’ve learned in the course of the Northern Ireland process is sometimes people say, ‘Well, look, we’ve been trying this for 30 years and it’s not worked, and therefore it’s never going to work.’ You can’t afford to take that attitude. And particularly with the changes going on in the region at the moment, I think there is a huge strategic interest on both sides to get a credible negotiation going again. And, by the way, I should just say, one of the things we are still trying to do now, with the Quartet meeting, is to get a basis upon which we can re-launch the negotiation. Now, this is very tough. I mean, we’ve been negotiating literally day and night, every hour that God sends for the last five days. We’re not there yet but we’re still trying to do it –
PRESENTER
Isn’t –
TONY BLAIR
It’s frankly the toughest negotiation I’ve ever had to handle, but it is worth it because without the negotiation, whatever happens at the UN is in the end not actually going to deliver statehood.
PRESENTER
Isn’t that example you’ve given, though, demonstrating the value of this pressure that the Palestinians have applied by doing this, and, as you say, over the last five days, suddenly, this process has reignited when frankly – not perhaps a reflection of you, but certainly a reflection of political leadership from the countries that make up the Quartet – the thing has rather gone onto the back foot for quite some time, until this pressure was applied by the Palestinians?
TONY BLAIR
Well, that’s a perfectly good point by the way. And, as I keep saying to them, if this is a tactic, in one sense, it’s worked brilliantly. People are focused now on what we can do to re-launch a negotiation. It’s simply that, without the negotiation, you end up in a situation where, on the ground – and I’ve just come back from literally my 71st visit to Israel and Palestine. You know, I see on the ground what the problem is. And the problem is the Israelis’ concern about security, the Palestinians’ concern about occupation. Lifting that is the single most important thing.
Can I just make one other point about the Quartet because I think there’s frankly been a set of rather odd statements about the Quartet this week? The Quartet – as you just pointed out – is just the international community. If there is a disagreement in the international community, there’s a disagreement in the Quartet. If you substitute for the Quartet, you know, some other body, all you do is just transfer to that other body the same disagreement. So, it’s within the Quartet, where you’ve got the main players in this issue, that you have a situation where you’re at least given a chance to bridge the differences.
PRESENTER
Do you not find it surprising though that somebody like Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who was UN ambassador when you were Prime Minister, for five of your years as Prime Minister, describing the existing process as a sham?
TONY BLAIR
Yes, but I say this with the greatest respect for Jeremy, and I do. The fact is that what the Quartet can do is what it’s empowered to do by its individual members. Now, actually, insofar as there’s been any activity to restart this negotiation in the past few months, it’s been through the Quartet. And that is in itself interesting by the way, because usually it’s the Americans solely that lead on this issue. Actually, for the first time, the Europeans and others have been playing a significant role in trying to get this negotiation together. I mean, I have to say, having said that, you know, we’re not in agreement yet. I’ve got further meetings today, and the last meeting I had was ended here at, sort of, after one in the morning, New York time. So, it’s incredibly difficult, but you could get rid of the Quartet and have a ‘friends of the Middle East’. It would just mean more people round the table with exactly the same issues.
PRESENTER
What about your own role and the criticism of that? I mean, Nabil Shaath, who’s one of the Palestinian negotiators, is quoted as saying, ‘Mr Blair doesn’t sound like a neutral interlocutor. Sometimes he sounds like an Israeli diplomat.’
TONY BLAIR
Look, I understand why some of the Palestinians – and just to be aware, you know, Palestinian politics, like our own politics, has got many different voices and many different people who’ve got views. The Palestinians – I totally understand this. When they’re going to the UN this week, they almost – as it were – don’t want, colliding with that, some Quartet process to try and re-launch a negotiation. But it’s my job, as the Quartet representative, to try and make sure that we find a basis for re-launching the negotiation. Because if you take an issue like territory for example, you know, what are the precise borders? Or security, what are the precise security arrangements? In the end, it is only a negotiation on the detail, with people sitting round a table, that can get that resolved.
Whatever you do at the UN – supposing you, supposing that the UN Security Council said, ‘Okay, we are now going to endorse this call for a Palestinian state and we’ll declare one tomorrow.’ Or you had a resolution in the United Nations, which is another thing that they could do, saying it’s a state. It doesn’t make the state on the ground. That’s the point, so my point is very simple. If you like, as a context for a negotiation, the Palestinian application for statehood, I totally understand. As a substitute for a negotiation, that, in the end, won’t work. Now, to be fair, President Abbas, for example is very clear about this. He wants a negotiation and a process at the UN. That, I think, is deliverable.
PRESENTER
And do you think then that allowing for the fact that this seems to be going ahead, this application, whatever the outcome, that it may have shaken up the kaleidoscope sufficiently for there to be fresh momentum?
TONY BLAIR
Well, I think it’s certainly focused people’s minds but what I’m working on right now and specifically, I think the single thing that would give a renewed negotiation most credibility and momentum is if we can get a structured and clear and precise timetable to re-launch the negotiations and – you know, this is what, right at this very moment, I’m working on – if there was an obligation in the course of those negotiations for parties to present comprehensive proposals, particularly on the very tricky preliminary issues of borders and security. So, you know, that, I think would make a huge difference. Because I understand, by the way, the Palestinian concern that they could get into a negotiation and just simply sit there, talking across the table, but not getting anywhere. And that’s why I think the key to a credible negotiation – and that’s what we want – is a structured timetable, and that’s what we’ve been working on these past actual couple of months and what I’m trying to strengthen now in a bid to say to both sides, ‘Look, we can have a negotiation, and if we do, then you’ve got to get into it with serious proposals for peace.’
PRESENTER
Tony Blair, Middle East envoy for the Quartet, on the line from New York, thanks very much for joining us.
