Blair ramps up rhetoric on Iran
Tony Blair steps up rhetoric against Iran
Tuesday, 12, Dec 2006 12:00
Tony Blair today stepped up his rhetoric against Iran, warning it presented a "significant strategic threat" and saying all its activities in the Middle East were "negative".
The prime minister said the conference questioning the Holocaust hosted by Iran yesterday showed "this regime is extreme" and was "such a symbol of sectarianism and hatred towards people I find it just unbelievable".
He also warned against Tehran's backing for militias in Iraq, and its influence in the Palestinian territories, saying the country was "deliberately at the present time causing maximum problems for moderate governments and ourselves in the region".
Mr Blair's words appear to throw doubt on his commitment to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, a US report which said talks with Iran and Syria were crucial in stabilising Iraq in the future and which he last week described as a "strong way forward".
In his monthly press conference in London this morning, the prime minister insisted his views on the report had not changed. However, his rhetoric on Iran stepped up.
"There is a very clear sense in the region now that Iran poses a significant strategic threat and how we deal with that is a major challenge," Mr Blair told reporters.
He said he was not against the "concept of reaching out to people" but "I look around the region at the moment and everything Iran is doing is negative".
Mr Blair said: "You have a regional grouping to talk about Iraq, obviously everybody who's prepared to be constructive is invited.
"But I don't think there's any point of hiding the fact, and incidentally I don't think James Baker [an author of the Iraq Study Group report] is of the same view, that Iran at the moment poses a major strategic threat to the cohesion of the whole region."
Another recommendation of the study group was greater focus on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as a key to resolving much of the unrest in the Middle East, and the prime minister backs this argument.
He is making a trip to the Middle East over the Christmas period, where he will meet with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas for talks over how to break the deadlock between the Hamas-led government and Israel.
Today he said there "literally could be nothing more important on the international agenda" that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and stressed he was "desperate to play a part in helping the Palestinians", such as by releasing EU aid to the territories.
However, he confirmed that the policy of not talking with Hamas would continue, saying: "It's very difficult to see how you can negotiate with Hamas in circumstances where they're saying emphatically: 'We deny the right of Israel to exist.'"