Middle East: Quartet

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the role and future of the Middle East quartet.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, the Government remain determined to do everything possible to achieve a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. We believe the quartet still has an important role in achieving this.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

Given the breakdown of talks on 26 January, in the last iteration, and given that one side to the talks has no confidence whatever in the representative of the quartet—to the extent that they will not even shake his hand at the meetings—and that the other side in the talks flagrantly disregards the representative’s deadlines for submissions and proposals, can the Government really stick to the view that they have complete confidence in the future of the quartet? Is my noble friend aware of President Sarkozy’s comment that the quartet is dead—

“Let’s stop kidding ourselves”?

Will my noble friend tell the House what proposals the Government have to put the quartet on a new footing under new leadership?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

We all share my noble friend’s disappointment at the slowness of progress in the Middle East peace process and the difficulties that are being encountered—as well as at the suspension of the talks in Amman, although they have only been suspended and not abandoned altogether. However, I think that she is a shade harsh in her general judgment. We pay tribute to the efforts of Mr Blair and others in improving the situation on the ground in occupied Palestine, but one must be realistic: the quartet alone cannot achieve the progress that we all want to see. Such progress can happen only if the will is there, but the will is not present on all the necessary sides in the peace process to make progress along the road map. If the will is not there, the quartet cannot achieve the impossible.