Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
THURSDAY 1 FEBRUARY 2007
MR JOHN SAWERS AND MR DAVID QUARREY
Q1 Chairman:
Mr Sawers and Mr Quarrey, thank you very much indeed for coming
to see the Committee this morning. As you know, we are at the
beginning of an inquiry on the European Union and the Middle East
and we thought it would be a good idea to have witnesses from
the FCO at the beginning to get an overall view of the British
Government's position. We have, as you know, a number of questions
which we would like to put to you, but I do not know whether you
would like to make an initial statement before we start putting
questions to you.
Mr Sawers: Thank you, my Lord Chairman. I am
John Sawers, the Political Director at the Foreign Office, and
I advise the Foreign Secretary on the full range of political
and security issues worldwide with particular emphasis on the
Middle East, Iran, Iraq and so on. On the Middle East Peace Process,
of course the last few years has been pretty discouraging with
the developments that we have seen. We were hopeful that the disengagement
policy from Gaza would be followed by further steps by both sides
to create the conditions whereby the two-State solution, which
the British Government along with other members of the European
Union and many members of the international community support,
would be able to be brought closer, but the political developments
both in Palestine and Israel have made that more difficult. However,
it is not entirely a bleak outlook. There have been a number of
developments recently which have brought cause for greater optimism.
There have been direct contacts between Prime Minister Olmert
and President Abbas. There has been some funding of the Palestinians
from tax revenues that the Israelis collect. There has been a
ceasefire from Gaza which has been broadly respected, although
there are occasional rocket attacks still from northern Gaza into
Israel; and the outbreak of fighting between Palestinian factions
last week seems to have been brought to a close and, as with the
ceasefire, we will see if that holds. Of course violence continues;
there was the dreadful attack in Eilat on Monday which we utterly
condemned. The outlook remains uncertain, but there is more of
a willingness on the side of the two principal parties to work
more closely together and we are particularly encouraged that
the United States Administration has made a very significant commitment
to working intensively over the next two years to try to make
progress in the Middle East. Secretary Rice has said that they
would like to achieve a two-State solution in the next two years
and that determination is very welcome; it has been encouraged
by the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Government
as a whole. Therefore, whilst 2006 was a very difficult year for
the Peace Process, there have been some recent signs of progress
and the political aspects are coming closer together and we will
want to build on that and encourage that.
Q2 Chairman:
Thank you very much indeed. In that circumstance, do you feel
that the Road Map still represents the best basis for progress
or should the European Union now be directing its energies to
moving towards negotiations on final-status issues?
Mr Sawers: Well, I think the Road Map is a very
important document; it is agreed to by both sides, it is supported
by the Quartet, who represent the international community on this,
and there is no advantage in setting it to one side as it contains
some very important commitments that both sides have made. The
time-line that was set out in the original Road Map of course
has long been overtaken, but the commitments in there are important
ones; for the Palestinian side to bring an end to violence and
dismantle the terrorist structures, on the Israeli side to stop
settlement building and to normalise life for Palestinians, and
on the side of both of them the commitment to a two-State solution.
I think what we will see is that the US-led political efforts
will be looking not just at a methodical working-through of the
Road Map as it is set out at the moment, but I think they will
want at least to establish a sort of political horizon by talking
about some of the difficult final-status issues, not pre-negotiating
them, but setting more of a framework for the resolution of those
difficult final-status issues as they go forward on the first
stage of the Road Map, which is to bring an end to violence and
to normalise Palestinian life as far as possible.
Q3 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
The Road Map 2003 was in very different political circumstances
and the election of Hamas a year ago clearly put a question mark
over the various steps. I notice that Solana in a recent interview
said as follows: "It's time to enter final-status talks.
It's time to enter a discussion of the end of the conflict. A
crisis management approach to the Israeli-Palestine conflict is
over; we need to enter the conflict-resolution stage and try to
end the occupation of 1967". Do you wholly agree with that?
Mr Sawers: I do not want to be tied to exact
wording that Mr Solana has used, but he is an important player
in this, representing the European Union, and he has been very
deeply committed for a good number of years and has established
good relations with both sides, so he is a significant player
and what he says is important and weighty.
Q4 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
But that was not the question.
Mr Sawers: Yes, I was just coming to the answer
to your question. As I said to my Lord Chairman, I think all parties
recognise that we are not going to be able to simply work through
the Road Map stage by stage, but there is going to have to be
some discussion of the difficult final-status issues, borders,
settlements, refugees and Jerusalem, if the time-line that President
Bush has set, and which we would all support, of early progress
on resolving the Palestinian question is to be achieved. Now,
whether that means we go straight into negotiation of the final-status
issues, I think that might be a step too far at this stage. I
think the conditions have to be created if those negotiations
are to be successful, but certainly earlier discussion, building
on some of the progress that was made in 2000 between the two
sides, I think there is scope for doing that and it is something
which I know the US Administration are willing to consider and
engage in.
Q5 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
What are the serious prospects of making progress when the two
principal leaders are weakened so politically? President Abbas
is mightily weakened within the Palestinian territories and Olmert
has introduced into his coalition the hard-liners, so there seems
to me very little prospect of either of the two main leaders being
able to make commitments which are serious and binding.
Mr Sawers: I do not disagree with your analysis
about the respective political strengths of the leaders that we
are dealing with, both face domestic political difficulties and
that is very apparent. But both are keen to find a way forward
and see the prospect of progress towards a peaceful resolution
of the Palestinian question as being a way of building greater
strength, if they can do it on terms acceptable to their own communities
of course. I think progress in the second half of last year was
held back by the political conditions that you describe, but I
think, as the small steps that I have set out show, the ceasefire
between Palestinians in northern Gaza and Israel and the greater
co-operation between the two sides, there is a willingness of
the two parties to work closely together, and the engagement of
the United States on a level which frankly we have not seen for
the previous six years, I think that is encouraging. It is always
going to be extremely difficult to make progress on this, I do
not want to raise expectations too high, but to have the political
commitment of the US Administration, of the European Union and
of the leaders of the two main parties is a very important starting
point.
Q6 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
How do you respond to sceptics who say that the new US commitment,
because, you will remember, after the Clinton experience the first
years of the Bush Administration were wholly neglecting the Israel-Palestine
conflict, is more to do with bringing on moderate Arab states,
Jordan and Egypt, into a dialogue which might help the US elsewhere
in relation to Iran and Iraq and less to do with the immediate
conflict?
Mr Sawers: No, I think the US Administration
understand the centrality of the Palestinian question, I think
more so as the years go by. Obviously in the last two years of
a US Administration, the pressures on them change and the desire
to be able to produce real, lasting change and progress is very
real as well. I stick by what I said earlier, that I think that
there is a prospect for making progress, although it will remain
difficult, and all the factors that you describe, Lord Anderson,
are indeed problems that have to be addressed.
Q7 Lord Hannay of Chiswick:
If I could follow on the line of questioning that Lord Anderson
asked about the Road Map and the final-status issues, and I welcome
very much what you said about the final-status issues being a
part of what we are looking at now, but do you not think another
reason or two reasons why that is desirable are, firstly, that
it is very difficult to pursue sequential peace negotiations when
there is such distrust about the final-status issues and when
there is the feeling that any interim or preliminary step somehow
prejudges the outcome of a final-status issue and, therefore,
nobody accepts it until they know what is going to happen, and
I have always thought personally that that is a drawback of the
road map approach? Secondly, the road map approach is singularly
vulnerable to the extremists because that is the sort of approach
where it is easy for the whole thing just to grind to a halt because
somebody blows somebody else up in Eilat or wherever it is, whereas
surely what we need in the Middle East is what we finally got
to in Northern Ireland which is a peace process which the parties
to the process simply will not allow to be derailed by extremists
outside the process using violence?
Mr Sawers: I do agree, my Lord Chairman, with
Lord Hannay's sentiments. I think the problem with the Road Map
has been the burden of meeting the first phase before you can
make progress towards a Palestinian State, and, as you rightly
say, Lord Hannay, the opportunity for extremists to block it is
very real. The readiness to look at the issues in the round to
describe what the final outcome might be, I think, is an important
movement on the political side. The engagement of the Palestinians
in a process with one another, the Fatah and Hamas discussions,
I think they are important, but we are not clear whether they
are going to lead to a national unity government of any form in
the near future and, if one is formed, we will obviously want
it to accord to the Quartet principles which President Abbas himself
is firmly signed up to. We do have to proceed, as you say, in
a way in which every political leader and group is committed to
the Peace Process and to dealing with the violence and countering
terrorism. Prime Minister Rabin 12 years ago had a good expression
where he talked about pursuing peace as if there were no terrorism
and countering terrorism as if there were no peace negotiations,
and that is the sort of approach which needs to be taken. The
difficulty will come if there is a party in the Palestinian Government
that has not renounced violence, if it remains committed to violence.
That was the breakthrough in Northern Ireland, if I may pursue
your analogy, that it was only when the leaders of the main political
groups were all committed to peaceful negotiations and had all
set aside violence as a tactic that we were able to make progress,
and that is going to be equally important in the Middle East.
Q8 Lord Lea of Crondall:
Mr Sawers, without being too pedantic about it, we are inquiring
into in effect the specific role of the EU.
Mr Sawers: Yes.
Q9 Lord Lea of Crondall:
Constitutionally, we are bound to be within those parameters and
obviously there is a question of interpretation of that, so all
the way through we will be looking at the value added of the EU
against the political background that you have described. Now,
some people think the EU ought to do more, indeed the Jordanian
Foreign Minister said in so many words recently that the EU ought
to do more. In what sense can the EU, when the balance is to all
the configurations which you have touched on, have its own priorities?
Some people think that it should do because of the relations with
the American approach, but where can European efforts have the
greatest impact?
Mr Sawers: I think a lot of progress has been
made over the last several years, and my colleague Mr Quarrey
may wish to add to what I say. The European Union has established
a much broader relationship with Israel, for example, through
the Association Agreement and through the European Neighbourhood
Policy's activities, which has given more substance to that relationship,
so the European Union is not only engaged in the Peace Process,
it is engaged in a range of issues, thickening relations between
Israel and the European Union, and I think that has been very
beneficial and effected the debate on Europe's role both in Israel
and in Europe. The European Union has also added value in some
specific areas. We have given very substantial aid to the Palestinian
side, a total of some 680 million euros was given last year, for
example, a combination of European Member States and the European
Commission, and that has been of central importance to addressing
humanitarian issues on the Palestinian side and, in a difficult
period, channelling funds to essential services in Palestine.
The European Union has also engaged more in the security side,
and this is quite a breakthrough in the last two years, with the
two missions under the European Security and Defence Policy. The
Rafah Crossing, which the European Union runs and manages, is
a very difficult project and it is not 100% successful, but it
is an important opportunity for Palestinians to move directly
into Egypt and Egyptians to move directly into Palestine without
passing through Israel, and it is policed and managed by the European
Union with support on all sides. The second breakthrough on the
security side is a project which is known as `EU COPPS', standing
for the `Co-ordination Office for Palestinian Police Support',
and that started as a British project several years ago. It has
now been adopted by the European Union and expanded and this helps
support the Palestinian police's own transformation plan in Palestine
and it co-ordinates Member States' assistance to the Palestinian
police. Therefore, in a number of areas we are making practical
assistance.
Q10 Lord Lea of Crondall:
You are drawing a distinction, in other words, between the EU
having a role giving practical assistance, but not having its
own policy on what you might call the `border politics'?
Mr Sawers: Well, Lord Lea, you interrupted me
before I got to the last point. What I was doing was laying the
basis of how the European Union has established very substantial
relationships of trust and support with both the principal parties.
The existence of the Quartet does give us a position whereby the
European Union's voice is there alongside that of the UN, the
United States and Russia, and I think also it is fair to say that
the European Union represents the middle ground of the international
community and that is an important issue. When there is a debate
between various parties, between the Arab world, between Israel,
the United States, Russia and so on, the European Union can act
politically as a rallying point. We, 25 years or so ago, advocated
an independent Palestinian State and that has now become international
policy, which is longer than we would have liked. It was deeply
controversial in 1981 when it was first announced, but it is now
a commonplace and adopted by the United States as US policy. We
have helped facilitate talks between the two sides, we have supported
the Palestinians in their capacity to engage in these negotiations
and I think all the developments that I have described have led
to a greater degree of trust on the Israeli side as well as on
the Palestinian side that the European Union has an important
voice and has a role to play. In the personality of Javier Solana,
we have an individual who has been very closely involved, has
helped resolve specific obstacles and has helped set the international
framework for discussion of the Palestinian question. Is the European
Union role as great as that of the United States? Well, I do not
think it is as great as that of the United States, I think that
is some way off. The United States is an absolutely essential
player in large part because of its relationship with Israel and
the crucial role that Israel is going to play in determining whether
there is peace or not, but I think the European Union role has
grown, it could grow further, and it is now institutionalised
as part of the Quartet and that is very important.
Q11 Lord Crickhowell:
I would like to follow on a bit from that line of questioning.
Helpfully, we have in front of us, attached to another paper we
have been considering this morning, the Explanatory Memorandum
on the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy, which
sets out rather neatly where we are. For example, in paragraph
30 of that note, it says that, "The EU's special representative
has been a key player in the EU's creative response to the political
situation", and it then goes on to refer to some of things
you were suggesting, the aid to the Palestinians, the EUPOL initiative
and so on. I understand those initiatives, but, on reading it,
I thought "creative response", what is that beyond these
very specific, little initiatives? When you came to talk about
representing the middle ground and the difference in the role
of Europe from the United States, I was saying to myself, "Clearly,
there is bound to be a difference because, by the nature of the
States and the way their foreign policy is devised, the United
States can take a clear initiative, decide on a policy and provide
leadership". I am not at all clear, beyond taking useful,
little steps which are helpful, how Europe, as it is formed, forms
a policy, a "creative response", that can be more than
fiddling on the sides, if I can put it like that, or how we actually
represent the middle ground and reach a decision on policy that
really makes a difference. I think this is at the heart of what
this inquiry is all about, that we welcome the small and important
steps that Europe has taken, but I am left wondering how Europe,
as it is constructed at the moment, can, and does, form a policy
that really makes a creative difference.
Mr Sawers: My Lord Chairman, I am in danger
of roaming beyond the brief of the Middle East, but I think there
are examples elsewhere, if you will permit me, where the European
Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy has progressively taken
more responsibility and has had greater effect. The Balkans is
one good example where Europe's commitment to bringing about peace
and stability and better governance in the Balkans and the opportunity
for these countries eventually to join the European Union has
meant that the European Union is now, by some way, the most significant
player in issues relating to the Balkans. When we had the Orange
Revolution in the Ukraine, it was the European Union that took
the lead and the personality of Dr Solana and various Member States,
Poland, Lithuania and some others, who were most active in supporting
that very important change. There has been some slipping back
in the Ukraine since, but it was a very important moment when
the Orange Revolution succeeded and the outcome of the elections
was upheld. In Iran, you have another example where the European
Union has led international opinion through the mechanism of the
European Union where three Member States, Britain, France and
Germany, have taken the lead and where the United States has changed
its policy, seeing the importance and value of the European Union
approach. There is still a long way to go with Iran, but Europe
remains the lead player in shaping international opinion and international
policy, in part, because the United States, Russia and also China,
each very important players, find it difficult to agree to one
another's policy, but they can all support the European approach.
They may not think it is perfect, but they can see that it represents
a good approach for the international community as a whole, and
that is what I was referring to as the `middle ground'. On the
Middle East Peace Process, the European Union role is not as great
as it is on these other areas, the Balkans, Ukraine and Iran,
that I have cited, but it has, as I have said, created a framework
whereby the whole international community now accepts, with the
exception of one or two outlying countries like Iran, that there
should be two states in the Middle East, an Israeli State and
a Palestinian State, and it is based on European policy. Through
periods where the United States has not paid as much attention
to the issue as we would like, we have kept the flame burning
for that two-State solution and supported people on both sides,
both the Israeli side and the Palestinian side, who were working
to that goal. We do not have the same degree of influence or leverage
over, for example, the Israelis or the Palestinians that we have
over countries who are closer to Europe, but we can play an important,
political role and we can play it by encouraging the United States
to remain engaged, by feeding in ideas, by establishing good practice
on the ground in terms of supporting the Palestinian Authority
and in building up a relationship with Israel where Israel's economic,
cultural and commercial interests are much more tied up with Europe
than they are with the United States. I think Israelis recognise
that and value that and it means that they respect the European
Union approach perhaps more than was the case some years ago.
I would not like to claim too much credit for the European Union
policy specifically on the Middle East Peace Process, but, on
the wider question of the development of CFSP, I think we have
seen very important progress in the last 10 years. The development
of a capacity to engage in security issues through the Security
and Defence Policy is another important step and there are the
two examples I cited to Lord Lea earlier which show that we can
bring these capabilities to bear in the Middle East as well.
Q12 Lord Crickhowell:
My next question follows from that. You pointed to one of the
very initiatives that have been taken elsewhere and how useful
they have been. The paper that I referred to refers to the very
important role of the EU Special Representative in all this. I
suppose my question is, all right, the potential is there. We
have done it elsewhere. Is it actually beginning or likely to
happen and, if so, are we reaching a point where there is going
to be a greater clarification of EU policy that is likely to lead
to the kind of contribution that we have made in the other cases?
Listening to you, I get the impression that there is potential;
we could do it because we have done it elsewhere, but up to now
it has still not happened. Do you think it is going to happen?
Mr Sawers: I think it is unrealistic for us
to aspire to have a greater role than the United States in bringing
about peace between Israel and the Palestinians. I think it is
fair for us to aspire and right for us to aspire to a significant
role in that process in support of the United States lead. Sometimes
the European Union will work in tandem with the United States,
sometimes Europe will take the lead, sometimes America will take
the lead. It is government policy, often stated by the Prime Minister,
that these are our essential alliances and where Europe and America
work together we have a better chance of achieving progress but
we cannot always assume that Europe is going to be better placed
to take the lead and bring about the solution. On this particular
question affecting Israel's vital interests, I think the role
and the leadership of the United States is frankly indispensable.
Q13 Lord Hannay of Chiswick:
If I could follow up on this, it seems to me that you have made
a very strong case for the Europeans, in Lord Crickhowell's words,
trying to demonstrate a better grasp and better involvement than
we have done hitherto in the big policy issues in the Middle East
peace process, and you yourself gave the example of Lord Carrington's
policy when he was in the chair on the two-State solution, which
actually was a brilliant diplomatic manoeuvre in the sense that
it shifted the whole debate substantially and it never slid back
again. It could well be that Europe has a role to play, not in
bringing about something revolutionary but in moving the debate
forward, particularly on final status issues. Would you not think
that this is all the more necessary if you are, as I am, somewhat
more sceptical about the US staying power in what they have just
announced as their determination to give a lot of emphasis to
this. It is really very difficult to see this US President sitting
in Camp David in September 2008 trying to negotiate in his last
months in office a Middle East peace settlement. I am sorry to
say my imagination does not run that far. If that is the case
the greater likelihood is that the American effort will fade as
the presidential election approaches, as the lame duck syndrome
takes stronger root, et cetera, and that, which I would like you
to comment on, is perhaps the period during which Europe will
make a genuine contribution not to settle for peace, not in competition
with the United States, but to move the whole argument forward
on the ground which would be perhaps subsequently part of a settlement.
Mr Sawers: I have three comments there. First,
the precedents from previous US administrations show that the
authority of the United States President remains powerful through
to the end of the term and President Clinton actually came rather
close to making a very important breakthrough on this issue in
his last months as President. The present US administration, may
not follow Clinton's lead necessarily, but equally they may make
a greater commitment in their last two years on this issue than
they have done in previous years. Secondly, I would say that even
if they cannot actually achieve the goal of a two-State solution,
the act of making a political effort is in itself important. The
commitment to resolving this issue and direct regular engagement
of senior members of the administration, like Secretary Rice,
itself helps create an atmosphere in the Middle East where western
interests collectively can be better managed, respecting the centrality
of the Palestinian question to the interests of the people who
live in the region, particularly in the Arab world. Thirdly, on
whether the European Union can make a step forward, I can see,
Lord Hannay, the direction which you are suggesting we take, that
the European Union might somehow define or give more detail to
where the final status issues might be resolved and make it easier
for the parties to come to that. I do not exclude that. I think
the disengagement of Gaza, for example, has helped give shape
to some of the final status issues. For example, in Gaza the 1967
border was recognised. The settlements that were inside that border
were withdrawn and the settlers were relocated. I do not think
on the West Bank the 1967 border will be followed identically
as there are three large settlement blocks which will almost certainly
stay as part of Israel. It is possible that the European Union
could take forward our expectation as to where the outcome of
those final status issues should be, for example, once a border
is agreed between Palestinian and Israeli leaders then the future
for settlements which are inside that border should, one possibility
would be, follow the Gaza model, and I think that is quite likely
myself, speaking personally. Another question is the right of
return of refugees. It is not realistic to think that the 1948
refugees are going to be able to return fully to the state of
Israel. We could speculate about where that comes out. Maybe it
would be useful for the European Union to elaborate that more
clearly, but the two most difficult of the final status issues,
the question of the borders and the question of Jerusalem, are
matters where there needs to be further exploration by the United
States and by the parties themselves as to where the solutions
lie. On the borders there will have to be some compensation between
the two sides if land which was Palestinian before 1967 is incorporated
into the state of Israel. On the question of Jerusalem, President
Clinton came up with an expression for dealing with the final
status of Jerusalem: that which is Arab is Palestinian and that
which is Jewish is Israeli. The situation around Jerusalem is
extremely difficult. I do not think the European Union can easily
wade in and define where the borders of Jerusalem should be. I
think that would be a rather dangerous game to play, but there
is the possibility for the European Union to engage itself on
these final status issues and try and shape the debate, a bit
like we did in 1981 as Lord Hannay describes.
Q14 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
Dealing with Hamas, some tried to draw an analogy between the
need to deal with Hamas and dealing with the IRA, yet they have
not been particularly helpful, I notice, and even the much acclaimed
statement of Khaled Mish'al given from Damascus still said in
effect, "But I will not deal with Israel in terms of recognising
or admitting it", and following the latest atrocity in Eilat
the Hamas leadership said it was "legitimate". Do you
think that the three principles which have been the road block
to dealing with Hamas, the recognition of Israel, the acceptance
of previous commitments and the renunciation of violence, need
to be modified in any way?
Mr Sawers: No, I do not think they do need to
be modified. I think the Quartet principles are very important
and represent our values as well as our policy. I deplore what
the leader of Hamas said about the bombing in Eilat and also his
continued refusal to recognise the reality of the state of Israel.
There have been continuing efforts to create a national unity
government between the various parties in Palestine, but I do
not think they are close to a conclusion. Fatah and President
Abbas are clearly committed to the Quartet principles themselves
and they know that the international community is not going to
be able to co-operate and work with a Palestinian government that
is not committed to renouncing violence, recognising Israel and
upholding previous commitments, including the road map commitments.
I am not sure, my Lord Chairman, quite what Lord Anderson is suggesting
but we are not on the point of changing our policy on Hamas at
this stage.
Q15 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
I can sum up that argument on the basis of the dealings with the
IRA, a terrorist organisation, that progress can only be made
if one somehow sets aside the Quartet principles and has negotiations,
direct or indirect, to bring Hamas into the dialogue.
Mr Quarrey: I wonder if I might add something,
my Lord Chairman. It is our information that President Abbas has
worked very hard and has come very close at least three times
to forming a national unity government based on the Quartet's
three principles and the Prime Minister was careful in signalling,
when he was in the region in September, that the UK would engage
with a government which was based on the Quartet's three principles.
Every time President Abbas has been able to bring Hamas close
to a deal in negotiation they have frustrated those negotiations,
for example, by inserting a clause about only accepting agreements
deemed to be in the Palestinian national interest, which would
render meaningless the acceptance of the Quartet principles. We
have been careful not to be absolutist about this but to try to
assess the direction in which Hamas may be moving and I think
President Abbas has made some genuine, and frankly heroic, efforts
to move Hamas in that direction.
Q16 Lord Anderson of Swansea:
And the response to Eilat was totally unhelpful.
Mr Quarrey: Exactly that.
Q17 Lord Hannay of Chiswick:
Can I just ask one point about the three criteria? Two of them
always seemed to me to be absolutely rock solid but the one about
recognition seems to me to float in a rather dangerously vague
area because recognition can either mean a technical international
law recognition in which you recognise a state within certain
borders or it can mean recognising that you are dealing with a
reality. The second of those I suspect is what we are all trying
to say Hamas have got to do, but, of course, by using the word
"recognition" we imply that they are also being asked
to do the first and that is what has given me some concern. I
do not know whether this concern is at all shared. I am not suggesting
you can change it because it is all written in stone.
Mr Sawers: The word "recognition"
does carry that ambiguity but Palestine is not yet a state and
therefore it is not in a position to recognise other states. What
we want is for Hamas to recognise the reality of the state of
Israel and to remove from its lexicon its commitment to the destruction
of the state of Israel, and that strikes me as a reasonable thing
to ask of a negotiating partner.
Mr Quarrey: Also, the fact of recognising and
accepting agreements that the PLO had previously signed up to
would de facto mean a recognition of Israel without Hamas
perhaps having to say it publicly in terms. For example, if they
were able to go that far we would have recognised that that showed
that the direction of travel was the right one but we have not
even got that far at this stage.
Q18 Lord Boyce:
I want to ask you something about what your experience is of the
EU participating in the Quartet, and I think you have answered
some of that in the question before last, but just on a practical
level what is the working relationship between the officials of
the Member States, the Solana/Rohan camp, and the Quartet? Is
it listened to, or is the EU listened to? Does the EU, for example,
get consulted or talked to before, say, the United States launches
some initiative, or does it just go ahead and do it and the EU
just has to catch up afterwards? I was interested that you said
that we aspire to taking a significant or a leading role. Do you
really see that aspiration being realised while the US has such
a strong part?
Mr Sawers: I hope I did not say we aspire to
a lead role. I said we aspire to a significant role. I think the
EU role in the Quartet is important because it builds the European
Union into a structure of consultation within the international
community. It is not just the meeting of Quartet Principals, such
as the one that is taking place tomorrow where Secretary Rice
and the UN Secretary-General and Minister Lavrov will be meeting,
including with the European Union team of Solana and the Presidency.
That is a very important step forward. Second is the infrastructure
below that. The European Union has a Special Representative, Marc
Otte, who works very closely on a daily basis with his counterparts
in other members of the Quartet and in working on the ground.
Thirdly, at the moment we have as EU Presidency the Germans who
have more standing on this issue than most other Member States,
and in many ways German policy towards the Middle East is extremely
close to British policy, so we have an opportunity in the period
ahead for particular influence from the European Union on US thinking,
and I think the meeting between Chancellor Merkel and President
Bush recently, where Chancellor Merkel talked at great length
with President Bush and after which President Bush reiterated
his commitment to the Quartet as the vehicle for taking forward
international policy. These are signs of where the European Union
can have traction. It is not always the same with every Presidency,
of course not, but I think the combination of the German Presidency,
the established role of Javier Solana and Marc Otte, the standing
they have acquired with the parties and the Americans does give
us influence. I go back to my earlier point to Lord Crickhowell.
The European Union is not going to supplant or overtake the United
States in playing the leading role on this but I think we are
having increasing importance in shaping the debate. For example,
in advance of Secretary Rice's recent visit to the region she
was in regular contact with Javier Solana, in regular contact
with the German Presidency, and she also talked to other foreign
ministers—the British Foreign Minister, the French Foreign
Minister and so on, about the approach she was going to take.
I believe we have influence both at the level of US commitment
and the detailed policies that they are pursuing and that would
not have been the case without the European Union's role and our
position in the Quartet.
Q19 Lord Boyce:
Your answer slightly worries me because it rather implies that
while the Germans have the Presidency the EU will have traction.
As soon as it is somebody else it may not necessarily have traction
and therefore it washes away again, so this is really a bilateral
Germany and the US rather than the EU and I suspect, from what
you have just said, rather the former, and it depends who has
the Presidency.
Mr Sawers: Members of the Committee, my Lord
Chairman, will know this better than I: who holds the position
of the Presidency does have a role, but the European institutions,
the Council Secretariat under Solana, the Commission, which has
given very generous sums of money, institutionally have a role
here which survives and continues whoever is in the Presidency.
We have a particular opportunity now because of the renewed US
commitment and because we have a very strong Presidency committed
to policies which are frankly very close to our own national policies
and which have been the basis for the EU policy over recent years.
I think there is an opportunity there.
|
