27 June 2005
The PM spoke to journalists in Downing Street, alongside Iraq’s Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari
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Prime Minister:
Good Afternoon everyone, and can I extend a very warm welcome to Prime Minister Jaafari. I said to him earlier that I wanted to pay tribute to his courage and leadership and to the courage of the Iraqi people as they make the transition towards a democratic country.
We are all familiar with the problems in Iraq and the challenges of security, but it can never be said enough that the Iraqi people, when given the chance, voted for democracy. The Prime Minister is here as a result of a democratic vote, and for the vast majority of Iraqis I am sure they want a future that is free from fear, in which they are sovereign rulers of their own country, and able to develop the enormous potential of Iraq and its people.
I made it clear to the Prime Minister that we would stand by our commitment to Iraq and the Iraqi people, that we will make sure that the job that we have undertaken is completed and finished, and we were both talking about the need for us all to understand that the defeat of terrorism in Iraq is a defeat for terrorism everywhere, and that is a struggle of strategic importance not just for Iraq, but for Britain, for the western world as well.
So Prime Minister, once again welcome here today. I am delighted to see you and your colleagues and I look forward to visiting you when I have the opportunity to return to Baghdad.
Mr Ibrahim Al-Jaafari
Thank you very much. I hope you are going to visit us. I invite you at any time you would like to come to Baghdad, you are welcome.
I thank the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, for his reception and feelings and his follow-up to the Iraqi affairs. At the same time I would like to ensure that the Iraqi courageous people have started their struggle, since 1968 until this dictatorship has fallen, the Iraqi people have given a lot of sacrifices. Every Iraqi family has lost a martyr, and the Iraqi people refused Saddam Hussein, despite all the oppression, and all the media, until 30 January 2005 and proved to the world that they want democracy. They insisted on the elections and the whole world saw how the Iraqi people want to decide their own future. The challenges that the Iraqi people are facing are many, and courageously the Iraqi people are steadfast from victory to another, from one step to another, until the National Assembly has been formed. All the demographic composition of Iraq is represented in Iraq, and also the Iraqi government is plural and represents the Shiites, the Sunnis and men and women of all the ethnic minorities in Iraq, they are in the National Assembly and in the government. This is the process we are moving forward. We are now facing unprecedented circumstances and we need all the other countries to stand with us. In the Brussels conference we hope that all countries, including Britain, will stand with us to support reconstruction, and the infrastructure and the political process until our people are free from this stage. Again I thank Mr Blair for his hospitality.
Question:
We heard today from the British Prime Minister that in the end it will be up to the Iraqi security forces to actually bring an end to insurgency in Iraq. How long do you think that is going to take, do you think it could be done in the next few years? And then a question to the Prime Minister, you also defended the policy, the Americans talked about meetings and contacts with rebel groups, who have they been with exactly, and if they are actually worthwhile, why have attacks increased since January, what success has there been?
Prime Minister:
I think just to respond to your last point, the important thing to emphasise is that we give people the chance to become part of the democratic process, but if they continue with acts of terrorism we will, together with the Iraqi government, the democratically elected government, supported by the United Nations process, we will defeat them, so there is no question about that. I don’t think it would be right to go into the contacts people have had with various groups. I think what is necessary to say, the Prime Minister will no doubt say something on this in a moment, but he was explaining to me that one of the reasons why the terrorists are targeting increasingly civilians, and civilians in the most innocent circumstances, and vulnerable circumstances, is precisely because they are feeling the pressure now, not just of the multinational force, but increasingly of Iraqi security forces themselves, and as I say he is a better witness to that than I am, but I am sure he will tell you about it.
Mr Al-Jaafari:
As well as the time needed, I think this time depends on many major factors. First, the development of the security forces, we are working on this as far as quantity and performance and equipment. The more we are equipped with this, the quicker we do it. There is also the borders with other countries in the region, if these countries cooperate with us in controlling these borders then the time will be shorter. There is also the progress of the political process, the more we progress I this, the more we can secure security. We find that the operations of the rebels is becoming less and less with the more political work done. We are even dealing with secondary issues such as the economic issues and the services issues. We are doing everything to overcome obstacles. I think a couple of years will be more than enough, and probably more than we need to establish security.
Question:
We have heard that there are American security forces negotiating with armed rebels, terrorists in Baghdad. Does the Iraqi government know about this? Is there an Iraqi official taking part in these negotiations, do you support this idea or do you have reservations?
Mr Al-Jaafari:
There are two angles to look at this issue. First, is the dialogue with what is called the Arab forces, is it allowed or not? We are not negotiating with anybody who has been involved in bloodshed or explosions, we will never meet these people, but if there are people, even if they have weapons but if they are not committed to violence and to bloodshed, then we should transform these people, instead of using weapons, to use the pen. We have no objection to this. The second point is that if the other party, whether the American party or the multinational force decide this, we are open to everybody to have dialogue with all the political forces to open a new chapter, provided they are not involved in bloodshed. We welcome any initiative to make the political process broader and more peaceful.
Question:
… the insurgents in Iraq, are you coordinating your contacts with the Americans, or is this something that is just taking place down in the British sector around Basra?
Prime Minister:
I think people should be careful of getting this completely out of context, and I am not going into the details of any of the contacts that we have had, or the Americans have had with people that we want to bring into the political process. But I wouldn’t exaggerate the nature of this. Essentially what we are trying to do, as I said a moment or two ago, is to say to people look there is a place for you in the political process if you give up violence, but what you are doing by this violence is you are actually destroying the prospect of Iraq becoming the type of country everybody of good sense and goodwill wants to see. So I think it is more in that sense, and there is no question of sort of negotiating with insurgents or terrorists in the sense of giving into their demands, it is more a question of saying to people, look you can divide, and again the Prime Minister is better at talking about this than me, but you can divide the people up, as in any such situation, into two groups. There are these people, very often I am afraid foreign people, who have come into Iraq, who are engaged in this suicide bombing, killing innocent civilians, innocent Iraqi people, vulnerable people. Those people I am afraid have to be expelled from the country or defeated, there is no way anyone can deal with such people. And then you will have people who may be on the fringes of what is happening but who can be persuaded that they have got to come fully into the political process. Now you are not negotiating with them over any demands that they have, you are simply trying to persuade them that in the end this is a political process that can include you if you are going to commit yourself to democracy and abide by democracy. Do you see what I mean, it is not dissimilar to what you face in any situation, and occasionally we have had these discussions about terrorism in different contexts, as you know, but I wouldn’t exaggerate what is happening here, it is just a sensible part of trying to make sure that you are bringing as many people into the democratic process as possible.
Question:
My first question is to Prime Minister Blair. There is interference from the neighbouring countries of Iraq, and as the observers see, this interference is probably supported by the governments of these countries. Will you take part, involve yourself to prevent such interference, or will you leave this to the Iraqis to solve it? And the other question to Dr Jaafari, what are the issues that you have discussed today, and have you received any exact replies, answers, from the Prime Minister about the future?
Prime Minister:
Again it is important that we emphasise this is now a United Nations backed process. It is the duty of every country in the international community to cooperate and work with the new Iraqi government, and we make it very clear to the neighbouring countries of Iraq that it is important that they work with the democratic Iraqi government and do not try to undermine it. And that is a message reinforced constantly by us, and I am sure by the Iraqi government itself. But if I could just say one thing to you about this, there will be many divided views over the conflict in Iraq and how we came to this point, what I ask people to accept is that now there is a common will amongst Iraqi people, amongst ourselves, amongst even countries that were opposed to the conflict, to help Iraq become the country it wants to be, and its people have voted for it to be, which is a democratic country where in the end the people are in power, and the Prime Minister here is a testament to that struggle the Iraqi people have had for decades, and as he reminded me, several of his own relatives were killed in the period under Saddam. This is a man who knows what that dictatorship meant. And if Iraq can be freed not just from the tyranny of Saddam, but then freed from this tyranny of terrorist violence that kills innocent people wholly without reason, then it will make progress and become a huge example of that progress to not just the Middle East but the whole of the world. Now sometimes I worry that there are others within the Middle East who are frightened of this example coming to pass, who will see Iraq as a sovereign democratic country, making progress, people investing in the country, the people with the same rights that we take for granted in countries like this, they will look at Iraq developing like that and they will worry. But we are determined to give every support to the Iraqi government in making that journey of progress because it is vitally important. And sometimes people say, and this is implicit in the first question I got asked, it is a very tough security situation in Iraq at the moment, but why is it tough - it is tough because people are trying to stop the democratic will of the Iraqi people. Well our response has got to be to defeat that obstruction, not to give into it. That is why it is important that the will of the Iraqi people remains firm, as I am sure it will, and I can tell you our will will remain firm too, because this is in our joint interest, in the interests of people in Iraq, but also in the interests of a country like Britain. If we defeat this terrorism in Iraq, we will defeat it everywhere, that is why it is important and that is why we will stay and see it through. And those countries who neighbour Iraq should understand they have a responsibility too to make this work.
Mr Jaafari:
Regarding the issues discussed, we discussed the democratic process in Iraq, the experiment of these brave people, civilised people who are able to build their own future and I am very proud to say that the political process in Iraq is worthy to be an example for all the countries of the world, despite the challenges we face. The process is going very well, from one step to another, to a better step. We also emphasised on the security side, we look to expedite the time in which we promote security so that we are able, as far as performance and equipment, then the Iraqis will decide their own future by themselves. This will serve us a lot, this will not threaten the security process. We also spoke about the grants, the Brussels conference was very important and Britain is playing a very important role with the donor countries. This aid will help Iraq. We also spoke about the services in Iraq, there are unprecedented circumstances in Iraq, we talked about this and we talked about the ways to make life easier in Iraq.
Prime Minister:
Prime Minister, yet again welcome. It is not often we British apologise for the heat here, but I do, and I am sorry there is no air conditioning here. Thank you for coming.
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