Interview on The Today Programme

Transcript of BBC RADIO 4 Interview

24 September 2001

Well, as the military build up continues so too does the diplomatic battle to build an international coalition particularly in the Islamic world. Today, a group of senior EU officials will begin a visit that will take in half a dozen countries where there are varying degrees of hostility to the United States and sympathy for Osama bin Laden among the population. They include the EU security chief, Javier Solana and the foreign affairs commissioner, Chris Patten. I spoke to Mr. Patten a few minutes ago and put it to him that the threat of military action would run the risk of inflaming public opinion and destabilising governments in the region.

One thing we will obviously be doing is talking to the government in Pakistan among others, we’ll also be having a similar conversation with the government in Iran about the impact on their countries and their economies of refugees leaving Afghanistan. It’s happened already in very large numbers. The reports that we were receiving in the summer suggested that Afghanistan had faced a famine, in the words of one observer, of biblical proportions. So there is a huge humanitarian problem that we will need to help Pakistan and Iran cope with in any event. I think there is one other thing that needs to be said though, totally wrongly, the fanatical terrorism of some Islamic groups has defiled the whole reputation of Islam. Now, as many, including the Sun newspaper have pointed out that is totally unfair and we don’t believe that that relationship should be made at all but we do think that there’s a responsibility on Islamic leaders everywhere, Islamic scholars, Islamic politicians to make clear that what has happened defiles Islam rather than represents the aspirations of Islam.

One of the things that the leaders of many of the Islamic countries are saying to the west is, please show us the evidence, the hard evidence that links Osama bin Laden to these specific attacks. Help us, if you can do that, you’ll help us to bring our public opinions with us. But the very nature of that evidence, gathered as it is from intelligence sources, makes it impossible to reveal publicly. That’s a problem isn’t it?

Well, I’m not sure. I noticed that the secretary of state, Colin Powell said that the Americans would be making clear the evidence they had. I don’t think many people doubt that the Bin Laden organisation and related organisations who’ve been responsible not just for recent acts of terrorism but ones before that and it’s going to be impossible to have a more secure world unless we deal with Bin Laden and his associates and I don’t think there’s really going to be much doubt about that. What I think the Islamic world wants to be clear about is that whilst it would be extraordinary if there wasn’t some military action to deal with this problem, there are an awful lot of other things that need to be done as well. Not just indirectly in the field of counter-terrorism but the sort of things that are required to, in order to, as it were, drain the swamp in which these mosquitoes live.

Let me ask you a question, if I may, about the nature of the realpolitik, I mean, three, for example, Pakistan itself is still under a raft of sanctions because of the coup that brought President Musharraf together. Must we now, as an international coalition, turn a blind eye to aspects of those countries which we would have condemned only two weeks ago?

Two aspects of that. First of all, it’s not just a question of Pakistan. We have a real opportunity, a strong opportunity of turning the page on relationships with some countries which haven’t been as good as either side would have liked. Secondly, nobody is going to forget the military coup in Pakistan, not that there was a particularly attractive government before that and we will continue to try to help Pakistan back on the road to democracy. We’d started to talk to Pakistan about that but we haven’t been allowing development assistance there for some time because of the military coup except in humanitarian circumstances. We still believe that democracies are the strongest fortress against terrorism and against political instability and we will encourage Pakistan on that road. But Pakistan, obviously, faces in the short-term, a more considerable problem and we’ll want to help Pakistan over come that.

And Iran. Iran has no intention of ending its support for Hizbullah in the Middle East.

Well, I had talks with the Iranian foreign minister a couple of weeks ago because we’ve started a dialogue with Iran on issues like trade and investment but also on issues like drugs and the like, we want to start on migration, on asylum, on refugees. I think the Iranian reformers are very keen to start to open things up to the rest of the world. We have to say to them that if they want to sign a formal contractual agreement with Europe then it will have to involve a human rights clause and we have to say to them that terrorism anywhere by anyone is wrong and that includes some of the organisations which perhaps Iran treats, rather differently, to the Taliban.

One question, finally, Mr. Patten about the nature of the support from the European allies. The last time all the European countries fought together was as part of NATO in Kosovo and that put considerable strain on the alliance. Are you confident now that this is quite different and that the Europeans will stand firm regardless of what kind of action America intends to take?

Look. I think there’s no question that the meeting on Friday of heads of government underlined our rock solid support for a long-term campaign against terrorism. It would be extraordinary if there weren’t nuances of difference from time to time in Europe as the debate goes forward just as there are in the United States. But nobody, repeat, nobody in Europe doubts the importance of this campaign. Nobody in Europe is other than wholly committed to seeing it through to success and I think that was the message which anybody should take from the heads of government last Friday.

Mr. Patten, thank you very much.