Middle East: Quartet

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

Does the noble Lord agree that the quartet is divided—for example over Syria, given Russia’s view on it—and that it has been ineffective, save marginally at the lower infrastructure level; but that we cannot kill it because there is no alternative, and one day there may be a role for it?