Blair: Iran and Syria must stop Middle East crisis
Tony Blair today reiterated his call for Iran and Syria to cease their support for Hizbullah and bring the current crisis engulfing the Middle East to an end.
He admitted the statement issued by the G8 leaders this weekend had “elliptically” referred to those that backed the militant group, but said most of the premiers meeting at the St Petersburg summit were clearer in their views.
“Hizbullah is supported by Iran and Syria, by the former in weapons, weapons incidentally very similar if not identical to those used against British troops in Basra, [and] by the latter in many different ways and by both financially,” he told MPs.
Responding in the Commons this afternoon, Conservative leader David Cameron backed Mr Blair’s stance, saying: “It is absolutely clear for everyone to see that involvement of Iran and Syria in Hizbullah and Hamas is deeply destructive and must be addressed.”
Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell called on Mr Blair to press for the UN to demand an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s attacks on southern Lebanon, which are now in their seventh day as it searches for two soldiers captured by Hizbullah last week.
However, the prime minister insisted the only “realistic” way to achieve such a calm was to address the underlying reason why the violence has broken out – namely, the lack of negotiations leading to some kind of peace settlement between Israel and Palestine.
He reiterated his support for an international stabilisation force in the region, and, despite lukewarm responses from the US and Israel, insisted “all the G8 countries support” the idea. The UN would be discussing it on Thursday, he said.
“The stabilisation force is an important thing we need to discuss – of course we can’t fight our way in there but if we end up with a settlement for ceasefire, then we need some sort of buffer force in which we don’t get the same situation breaking out again,” he said.
In his post-G8 summit briefing to MPs, Mr Blair repeated his call for Israel to exercise restraint, and again urged Hizbullah and Hamas, who are holding an Israeli soldier in Gaza, to release their captives and for attacks on Israeli cities to end.
“This situation began with acts of extremism by militant groups that were, as the G8 said unanimously, without any justification and of course were designed to provoke the very response that followed,” he said.
However, Sir Menzies took a slightly different line, warning: “The indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel is unacceptable but so too is the systematic and targeted attack on the infrastructure of the Lebanon.
“What if the government of Lebanon were to fall, and it go back to what it was 20 years ago? Who would fill the vacuum and how would that be in the interests of the long-term security in the region?”
Hizbullah has fired about 1,600 rockets into northern Israel in the past week, while Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 230 people, Mr Blair said.
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