|
Disarmament DocumentationBack to Disarmament Documentation 'No one should ever compare Iran with Iraq', UK Foreign Secretary's visit to Iran, June 30, 2003'FOREIGN SECRETARY'S VISIT TO IRAN', edited transcript of an interview given by the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw for BBC Radio 4, June 30, 2003. INTERVIEWER: Iran is one of the countries on George Bush's axis of evil just as Iraq was. Iran stands accused of secretly developing nuclear weapons, just as Iraq was. The pressure is on Iran to allow in inspectors to see what's going on, just as it was on Iraq. Iran is refusing to do so. What happens next? The FOREIGN SECRETARY Jack Straw is in Iran. I spoke to him a few hours ago. I asked him first if he thinks they really are developing nuclear weapons. FOREIGN SECRETARY: The answer is nobody knows for certain because the Iranians have so far refused effective, intrusive inspections of the kind now proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. So what we, in concert with everybody else in the international community, are proposing is that they have to sign up to what's called an additional protocol which provides for these more intrusive inspections. I have said here yesterday and I'll be saying again today to the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as Russia, France and Germany as well as us and the US have said, do this because it's very much in your own interests. But it's hard going because the Iranians say they will do this without putting a timetable on it. They want progress, if they do it, on the lifting of sanctions and so on. And we're having to say this is a sequential issue, not just an area for bargaining. INTERVIEWER: In other words, they don't get that until they've signed up? FOREIGN SECRETARY: It's about developing confidence and, and in any case it's not in the United Kingdom's or any one country's gift to lift sanctions. But if for example you take the European Union's position in which we've been playing a leading part, the Iranians and indeed the EU want a trade and cooperation agreement between Iran and the European Union. It would be important for Iran. We want to see this trade agreement, but we have insisted in the European Union that that this is linked to progress on cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and human rights. These things go in tandem. INTERVIEWER: Can you see the logic in this argument: that Iran might say, look we've seen what happens to a relatively weak country - Iraq -that had been suspected of having weapons of mass destruction, though it turns out not to have had any nuclear weapons? Had it really had nuclear weapons it wouldn't have been attacked. So therefore isn't the lesson of Iraq to a country like Iran, get on and do it? FOREIGN SECRETARY: No one should ever compare Iran with Iraq in terms of their political systems or their danger. This is also the argument used by other countries which are, or have unquestionably developed nuclear weapons. I concede that case. The point that I make back is that if you end up in a world where there is extensive proliferation of nuclear weapons systems then everybody becomes more vulnerable. If you want a safe region in a pretty unstable area here what you have to develop is a non nuclear region, not a nuclear region. INTERVIEWER: You talk in very reasonable terms about the diplomatic options. In this scenario you say no one should ever compare Iran with Iraq. Do I take it from that that there are no circumstances in which we would agree to an attack on Iran? FOREIGN SECRETARY: Yes and I can conceive of no such circumstances. INTERVIEWER: And in the meantime we have still found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. How much longer can we go on without somebody in Government actually saying [whether in Britain or in the United States] - 'Is it just possible that we got this wrong?' FOREIGN SECRETARY: I don't believe that it was 'Just possible that we got this wrong'. The decision to take military action on 18 March was justified, on the evidence that was available to the international community in page after page of detailed information about the nature and extent of the weapons systems and CBW capabilities and nuclear planning which is contained in various United Nations inspectors' reports. Now what we have seen subsequently is proof positive of a number of the anxieties and claims made by the international community going back to last October, including their development of illegal weapon systems, a lot of circumstantial evidence about chemical and biological weapons capability including for example all these antidotes that were found, three thousand chemical and biological weapons suits and so on. I hope very much that it does produce further corroborative evidence, but I'm not in any doubt whatever that this military action against Iraq was justified and it is already producing significant and beneficial consequences in terms of the stability and improvement of this region. INTERVIEWER: The fact remains does it not, that we still do not have the evidence to prove that Saddam (a) posed a real threat to this country and (b) was capable of launching an attack within forty five minutes? FOREIGN SECRETARY: Well it was striking at the press conference that President Putin gave last Thursday, that he volunteered the fact that Russia also believed that Iraq did have a chemical and biological weapons capability. Don't forget that Russia as well as the US and UK and the other twelve members of the Security Council, all took the view in Resolution 1441 in early November, that Iraq 'posed a threat to international peace and security because of its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction'. If we'd refused to deal with that threat at that stage, then we would now be facing an emboldened, re-empowered Saddam Hussein who would have wreaked further terror on his own people. And one of the things he would almost certainly have done is wholly disrupted and undermined the peace process which is now getting going between Israel and the Palestinians. Source: UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office website, http://www.fco.gov.uk. © 2003 The Acronym Institute. |