25 March 2004
Prime Minister:
Good Afternoon everyone. Three months ago, Libya took an historic decision to abandon voluntarily programmes to develop nuclear and chemical weapons. Though we have known from intelligence that such programmes existed, we did not know their scale, their precise location or their details. President Bush and I said back in December that it was not necessary simply for Libya to announce such a decision, it had to be followed through in practical cooperation with ourselves and with the international agencies responsible for shutting down such programmes. Since then Libya has indeed given full and transparent cooperation. They have provided unrestricted access to facilities, and given full answers to the questions posed. They have in addition volunteered information that has allowed us now to know the proper extent of their programmes. These were significant and substantial, both in the nuclear and chemical field. It is therefore particularly important that this cooperation has been so full. Secondly, they have begun intensive cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency in respect of their nuclear weapons programme and have now signed, as of 10 March, the additional protocol to the IAEA Safeguards Agreement which allows intensive, indeed intrusive, inspections. Thirdly, they have ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Fourthly, they have deposited the instrument of ratification to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and on 5 March made to the organisation for the prohibition of chemical weapons a full declaration of their chemical weapons production. Fifthly, they have now received the formal delegation of the Missile Technology Control Regime to allow them to begin their work on the long range missiles. And sixth, in conjunction with US and UK experts, Libya has facilitated the removal from Libya of highly sensitive documentation and tons of weapons of mass destruction-related equipment. This is now, as you know, at a US military base. And on 10 March the IAEA board approved a resolution welcoming Libya’s cooperation.
I set this out in some detail for you so that you see just the steps that have been taken, following the decision back last December. Libya’s voluntary and open implementation of that decision gives us real hope that we can build a new relationship with it, one for the modern world. I was particularly struck at our earlier meeting with Colonel Gaddafi by his insistence, not only of Libya’s determination to carry on down this path of cooperation, but also his recognition that Libya’s own future is best secured by a new relationship with the outside world, and the recognition also of a common cause, with us, in the fight against al Queda extremism and terrorism which threatens not just the western world, but the Arab world also.
None of this, as I explained, can alter the pain of past actions. In respect of Lockerbie, Libya has accepted UN resolutions on this, accepted responsibility for the actions of its agents and has agreed compensation in respect of the victims. Libya has also agreed to a further visit on 3 April of the Metropolitan Police Service in respect of the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher. We have kept, and will continue to keep, the relatives affected by such actions fully informed.
In reaching out the hand of partnership today, we do not forget the past, but we do try in the light of the genuine changes happening to move beyond it. If we can show nations with dangerous nuclear, or chemical, or biological weapons programmes that they can give them up voluntarily and be then met with a serious and considered response, it will offer us and them a way forward from the enmity of the past that will improve the lives and security of us all.
From today, in line with the step by step improvement in our relations, the Foreign Secretary and the Libyan Foreign Minister will initiate a new dialogue on regional and security issues. We will deepen educational ties. You may like to know that Libyan students are in fact already the largest contingents in the UK from the Arab world. The British Council have opened a new office in Tripoli, we will renew strong UK-Libya trade ties. Shell today signed a new deal for gas exploration. BAES will also shortly sign a major deal here, and the Minister, Mike O’Brien, will lead a business delegation here in April. In addition I will appoint General Searby as the UK Defence Coordinator for Libya that will offer Libya a chance of a new military relationship with the United Kingdom.
These are significant steps to a changed relationship. Of course we must be aware of the pitfalls. Trust on both sides will take time to establish. But the signs are better than they have been for many years and the future prize in terms of the security not just of this region but of the wider world, indeed of our own country, is great.
Question:
Inaudible.
Prime Minister:
I don’t think your microphone is on, but you asked in respect of previous actions that there has obviously been movement, but what about the future. The visit on 3 April is important and I hope we have got to carry on pursuing this issue, because it is right that we do so. And the reason I listed in such detail the steps that Libya has taken since 19 December is because it is some … of good intent and good faith for the future. And obviously we have got to make sure that the IAEA regime then engages fully with Libya, that we make sure that we have got full transparency in all the programmes concerned and then that they are shut down and the material destroyed. And as you know, a large amount of nuclear and weapons material has already moved out of Libya to a US military base. And the one thing I thought that was very clear from the conversation that we had is that in the view of Colonel Gaddafi, the steps that have been taken are irrevocable steps. And of course we have got to go into this with our eyes open and be fully aware of the pitfalls, as I say, but it is remarkable progress given where we have been.
Question:
Isn’t it still quite frankly difficult to believe that the man who … sponsor of terror can really be our ally in the fight against terrorism?
Prime Minister:
Well there are many things about the world in which we live that are changing, and changing incredibly rapidly. And one of the things I tried to do in my conversation with Colonel Gaddafi was just explain how for America and for the western world, so much of the world has changed post-September 11. Who could ever have imagined that 3,000 people would die on the streets of America as a result of an organisation with its base in Afghanistan. Now exactly the same extremist forces are trying to ensure that countries, including countries like this, are also turned into Taliban-like states, also become breeding grounds for terrorism, and therefore yes it is an extraordinary thing that these changes are coming about, but the world in which we live is also changing and has many extraordinary features to it today. And if I had said to you a few years ago that Libya voluntarily would own up to, and then start to dismantle nuclear and weapons programmes, I think you would have said I was slightly naïve, but that is actually what has been happening. So this is a new world for all of us, and the important thing is that countries like this, if they are prepared also to recognise the changed world we live in, we should offer them a hand of partnership in doing so.
Question:
Inaudible.
Prime Minister:
Well the arrangements that we are entering into will be headed up on our side by General Searby, whom I have appointed as our Defence Coordinator, and there will shortly be an agreement here from BAE Systems, which as you know is a major British defence manufacturer. And I have got no doubt at all that in time to come we can enter into a different and better security relationship with Libya, and that is precisely what today’s agreements should lead to. And the most important thing to recognise is that we are showing by our engagement with Libya today that it is possible for countries in the Arab world to work with the United States and the UK to defeat the common enemy of extremist fanatical terrorism, driven by al Queda, and to ensure that we have a more secure world because of the absence of weapons of mass destruction. So I think that that is a very, very important signal to the whole of the Arab world as well as for our own situation, and the agreements that we have entered into will be an important part of that.
Question:
Prime Minister, sitting down with Colonel Gaddafi must count as one of the oddest things you have done in your Prime Ministership. Did you feel at all queasy about what happened today?
Prime Minister:
Well I have also sat down with people from Sinn Fein, as you know, because I thought that it was important to do so in the context of peace in Northern Ireland. It was strange, given the history, to come here and do this, and of course I am conscious of the pain that people who have suffered as a result of terrorist actions in the past must feel, but the world is changing and we have got to do everything we possibly can to tackle the security threat that faces us, and that means getting after those people that are engaged in terrorism and destroying that threat by every means we can, but it also means that if a country is prepared to say we want to put the past behind us, we want to give up our chemical and nuclear weapons capability, we want to cease our ties with terrorist groups, then we should be willing to open up to that and give them the hand of partnership and show that when they do that they get a proper response, they get a relationship that becomes normal, as it should be between countries. And if you go back over a long period of time, a country like Libya historically had very strong ties with the UK. Times change and when they do change we should be prepared to change with them, provided the change is real.
Question:
… idea of Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi standing shoulder to shoulder in the war on terror … the point is that those who find it difficult to believe …
Prime Minister:
If Libya really gives up, as it is doing, its chemical and nuclear weapons capability and becomes a stable partner for us out here in the Middle East, that is a huge gain not just for Britain or the United States, but for the whole of the world. And everything about the world today is changing. What I keep trying to explain to people is that the threat we face is a different type of threat, and September 11 was itself an extraordinary thing. No-one could ever have predicted it, and it has, and it should, change the whole of our view towards the world, and we now should offer countries and indeed peoples the choice of working with us, as Libya has now decided to do, leaving aside the past, not forgetting it but leaving it aside and working with us to get rid of nuclear, chemical, biological weapons programmes, to stop sponsoring terrorism, give people the choice of doing that, or to face increasingly strong and concerted action in order to protect our own security. Because what the last few years have taught us is that we cannot any longer protect our security in the ways that we thought feasible and practical some decades ago. And I understand why people will say well how is it that you can sit down with Colonel Gaddafi given the past, but my answer to that is that I have an overriding duty to try and preserve and enhance the security of my country, and of the wider world, and if I can do that by bringing about genuine change in a country such as Libya, with whom we have no relationship at all and with whom the past has been scarred by these terrible incidents. If we can do that then we should do it, and it should be based of course on a genuine change of heart and we should be very, very conscious of the dangers of this, but we should still seize the chance if it is there, because the alternative is a more uncertain and insecure world, not just out here in the Middle East but actually in Britain too.
Question:
… Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan … who might say ah well in 20 years time Tony Blair’s successor as British Prime Minister will be meeting with Osama Bin Laden.
Prime Minister:
Well I think it would be absurd if people actually compared Osama Bin Laden with Libya. The basic point that you are making is of course the point that people rightly make, they say is the change real, is this really going to be different? And the reason I set out and listed all the steps that Libya has taken in the last 3 months, including not just openness and transparency about information, but actually delivering up the equipment itself, is to indicate that there is sufficient there for us to continue this step by step change in our relations. And yes I don’t doubt that a previous President and a previous British Prime Minister, for perfectly good reasons, would have found it very difficult to believe, but the point that I keep making is that the world does change and it has changed dramatically within the last few years. And as a result of that it means we have to change too, and we have to change not by making any concession to terrorism or states proliferating weapons of mass destruction, on the contrary, as we showed in Iraq, we are prepared to take very strong action in those circumstances, as we showed in Afghanistan. But where a country is prepared to say actually our interest too lies in a world free from this new global threat and free from this extremism, then we should be prepared, whatever the past, to give them the chance to prove their word.
Question:
… especially to the European Union or Europe as a whole … player in the war for combating terrorism …
Prime Minister:
It is very clear that if Libya does what it has said it is going to do and gives up all nuclear and chemical weapons programmes and capability, then yes it will be a strong partner in the region, it will mean a new relationship certainly between ourselves, the United States and Libya, but also I believe between the European Union and Libya as well, and I think it will enable Libya to play a strong part in the affairs of the region. And all of us face a common threat and the terrorists who, let’s be quite clear, have been killing very large numbers of innocent Muslims as well as others, these terrorists threaten everybody. And what people want, whether they are in Libya, or back in Britain, or in the United States, is the chance to live in peace and to bring up their families with some sort of security, and that is a common struggle. And it may, as I was saying to the British journalists, seem very odd that we should be having this press conference here in Tripoli after so many years of estrangement, but then the whole of the world is changing and I hope that message of change, bringing about a new partnership, does not just stop at Libya but goes throughout the Arab world, because I can say to you, contrary to some of the propaganda, the United States, the United Kingdom, other western countries, we do not want to colonise other territories, we do not want to engage in suppressing the freedom of other people; on the contrary, what we want to do is to protect our security and give the same security and the same freedom to others, and if we can achieve this with Libya it will be a major step forward. Now we are only at the beginning of this relationship so let us be conscious of that and not get beyond the stage that we are at now, but it is at least a beginning and I think a good one.
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