Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Iraqi Ministers, Iraq, Europe and Cricket.
Iraqi Ministers
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised journalists that the Prime Minister would be meeting a group of five Iraqi Ministers today. The group would include the Governor of Basra, who was also a member of the IGC, and the Ministers for Water Resources, Health, Agriculture, Science and Technology. They were in the UK to attend the Iraq reconstruction conference, which had taken place earlier in the week.
Iraq
Asked for an assessment of the current situation in Fallujah, the PMOS said that the hard reality of life in Fallujah at the moment was that insurgents had launched an attack on US troops. As a result, they had a right to defend themselves, which was precisely what they were doing. Obviously we would like to see the situation resolved politically. However, that would only be possible if the will for that to happen existed on the other side as well. Clearly, the balance between political and military aspects was one which had to be assessed at a local level.
Europe
Asked if he would agree that the Prime Minister’s article for Le Monde today was offensive to President Chirac, the PMOS said no. If a French newspaper asked us for an article on Europe, it was sensible to write one setting out our position. The French Government’s position on such matters was entirely a matter for them. The Prime Minister had told the President about his decision to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution during a perfectly amicable conversation earlier this week. In answer to further questions about the Le Monde article, the PMOS pointed out that the latest edition of Le Monde had not actually been published yet. It was due to come out later today.
Asked if the Prime Minister had spoken to President Chirac about the article, the PMOS said no, since there was no reason for him to do so. They had spoken about the Prime Minister’s decision to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution. Questioned further about their conversation, the PMOS said that President Chirac had understood perfectly why the Prime Minister had taken the decision he had taken and had made it clear that it was entirely a UK matter. Asked if the President had asked the Prime Minister not to talk about the referendum in what might be interpreted as an inflammatory manner in France, the PMOS said he did not see how one paragraph, which had stated the factual position on the referendum, in an article about EU enlargement was inflammatory. He thought journalists needed to maintain a sense of perspective in these matters. Questioned as to why the Prime Minister had felt the need to speak to President Chirac about his decision to hold a referendum when it was nothing to do with the French, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister spoke to the President on a regular basis. The conversation earlier this week was part of their ongoing dialogue. Asked who had initiated the phonecall, the PMOS said that the conversations were usually the result of a mutual agreement to talk. They took place on a regular basis, in the same way as the Prime Minister’s conversations with other European leaders. He reminded journalists that the Prime Minister had had a meeting yesterday with Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy.
Asked about the FCO ‘party’ on EU enlargement this evening, which the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary would be attending, the PMOS said that he would refer journalists to the FCO for further detail about the event, since they were the ones who were organising it.
Asked if the Prime Minister would be meeting Valery Giscard D’Estaing today, the PMOS said yes. Asked why, the PMOS said that M. Giscard D’Estaing was in town. Asked why the PMOS hadn’t informed journalists at the start of the briefing that the meeting would be taking place, the PMOS said that it wasn’t our policy to brief on every single meeting which the Prime Minister had during the day. We tended to brief on those which we thought would be of significant interest to the media. Put to him that a meeting between the Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Convention on the Future of Europe would obviously be of interest to the media, the PMOS pointed out that the Convention had now completed its work and was therefore no longer in existence. Asked if that meant that they would not talk about the text of the Constitution, the PMOS said he had no doubt that the issue would be raised. However, this should be seen as a routine meeting and was nothing out of the ordinary.
Cricket
Asked why the Government was so reluctant to get involved in the ECB’s dilemma over whether to play cricket in Zimbabwe, the PMOS said that we had set out the position on this issue many times in the past. Our view had not changed. It was a matter for the cricketing authorities to make their own decisions. We had provided them with an analysis of the situation in Zimbabwe, as they had acknowledged. Cricketers, like any other individual, had the right to make their own decision about what they should do.
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