Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview in Kiev – 18 April 1996

Below is the text of Mr Major’s doorstep interview in Kiev on Thursday 18th April 1996.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister, do you condemn the Israelis for this latest rocket attack resulting in such a tragic loss of life?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think this is a dreadful loss of innocent lives, and what we have to look at now is how we can prevent a reoccurrence. Over the last 24 hours I have been in touch with President Chirac to discuss the affair; I have had a meeting with Prime Minister Hariri of Lebanon; and we have been in touch also with Mr Peres and President Clinton. I think what we need to do now is try and find a solution based on the agreements that were reached in 1993. I think that is possible, I don’t think we are a long way away from such an agreement, with a bit of goodwill on either side, and I am absolutely certain that that will be discussed at the G7 later on this week.

QUESTION:

Can it be excused?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think we need to look forward now and find out precisely what we can do to prevent it happening. Everyone can look back at the Hezbollah attacks into Israel, and the Israeli attacks into Lebanon, but that is non-productive. What is productive is to make sure that it does not happen again, and to do that we need to find some way of ensuring that it doesn’t. And the only way that we have been able to [indistinct] so far is to build on the 1993 agreement, that is what we must try and do.