Middle East: Quartet

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I think that my answer has to be the same as the one that I gave to my noble friend earlier. The quartet is part of the mechanism, but many other things need to change and improve. There is the question of the recognition of Palestine as a state. The British Government believe that Palestine has fulfilled most of the conditions for that although we think that the ultimate statehood will be acquired when the occupation ends and when peace is achieved. These things must all be pressed together. I do not think that it would be wise at this stage to say that the quartet must be put on the back burner and not play any role at all—it could play a role. At the moment, there are obviously major difficulties in the way.

[Baroness Tonge]

My Lords, I have just returned from a conference called by the Arab League in Qatar on the subject of Jerusalem. At the end of that conference a resolution supported by the Arab League was passed to ask the United Nations to try to stop Israel’s annexation and Judaisation of east Jerusalem. Will the British Government and the quartet support this move?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That is part of a jigsaw, the aims of which would certainly have our full support. The position is that after the suspension of the Amman talks, Mahmoud Abbas and others have made it quite clear that the aims are: border security, on which Israel is supposed to report back by the end of March on what it does; a freeze on the settlements, which certainly has not occurred; and that if neither of those things happens, then indeed the whole process will go back to the United Nations—and we shall continue to use our best efforts to make progress there.