The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Boris Yeltsin

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at Yale University – 30 November 2010

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech at Yale University, held on Tuesday 30th November 2010. The speech was entitled “Fantasy to Reality : The World That Lies Ahead” and was the annual George Herbert Walker Lecture held at the university.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I’m doubly delighted to be here at Yale this afternoon: firstly, because I am in the company of my old friend, Ernesto Zedillo.

    I’ve known President Zedillo for many years. He is one of a too rare breed: a man who gives politics a good name. So it is always a pleasure to see him and it was a delight to accept his invitation to visit this famous old University once again.

    And it is also a special delight and privilege to deliver the George Herbert Walker III Lecture. In my years in politics George Herbert Walker Bush was a close ally – notably during the first Gulf War – and became a life-long friend to cherish. George Bush is a citizen of the world and respected in every part of it. When I became Prime Minister – George Bush was the first to phone me up from Air Force One. There was a slight glitch, he got my brother and the conversation went slightly awry. My brother was wondering who he was and said to the cook in the kitchen there’s a Mr Bush on the phone, “do we know him?” and I was dragged out of an adjacent room to speak to the President.

    When I ceased to be Prime Minister, George Bush was pretty much the first person on the phone yet again, with an invitation to Kennebunkport. George, like Ernesto, is a friend for all seasons.

    For George and Ernesto I would do almost anything – but I do draw the line at jumping out of aircraft on my birthday – even for George.

    My theme this afternoon is the quite extraordinary ways in which the world is changing – and what that means for the future. Let me try and put it in some sort of context.

    My father died nearly 50 years ago. Since then, the world has changed beyond recognition. Fifty years ago, the Soviet Union and the United States were the two super-powers. China was isolationist. Japan had barely begun her post-war rise. Central and Eastern Europe were still under Soviet control. Germany was still a divided nation. Latin America was a continent of revolutions. The European Union was in its infancy. The Gulf was undeveloped. Much of Africa was still colonised. Oil was $3 a barrel and no-one foresaw an Islamic Revolution.

    Little of that world now survives – and the pace of change is accelerating within the span of one lifetime. My father, were he here, would simply not recognise today’s world. And neither would people who left politics much more recently. Someone both George Bush and I knew very well was Boris Yeltsin.

    Now Boris Yeltsin who ruled Russia just over a decade ago, but now seems part of a bygone age. Boris had a great gift for brevity and irony. I remember walking with him once in the Kremlin, this would have been in the mid 1990s, I said to him, “Boris in one word what is the state of Russia?”, he said “good”, I was surprised, it was falling to pieces, I said “tell me in two words”, he said “not good”.

    Even since then, the world has moved on.

    Nothing is as it was. In the future, nothing will be as it is. The great challenge is to identify the changes that are to come and use them and to try and take advantage of them.

    You may say: but we don’t know what is to come. In fact, we know a good deal more about the future than we realise. When Shakespeare put the words: “Nothing comes from nothing” into King Lear’s mouth, he spoke an eternal truth. Change rarely comes as a bolt from the blue, it’s the result of trends we have overlooked or, sometimes, policy we have implemented.

    As evidence, I offer the economic problems we’ve been facing in the last couple of years. They are the result of an unrestrained boom.

    Business and political leadership failed us. We enjoyed the boom but did not prepare for the aftermath.

    As a result, the outlook for all the mature economies – America, Britain, the Eurozone and Japan – is at best sluggish. Consumer demand is fragile. Banks are cautious about lending as they repair balance sheets. Public spending is anaemic. Unemployment is stubbornly high.

    This is a result of policy failures that brings into stark relief a trend that has been developing for decades: other economies – in what we quaintly and rather patronisingly call the ‘third world’ – and I have myself in forty years of politics never discovered what the second is – are catching up on the dominance we have enjoyed for so long. China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia are all coming into much greater prominence and will continue to do so in the decades that lie immediately ahead.

    As Westerners, we may regret our shrinking pre-eminence but it does create a better balanced – and very probably a safer – world than we have previously known. And one that helps us: emerging markets will help re-float the Western economies. It has led to something I certainly never expected to see in my lifetime – China funding the American deficit.

    But you and I had better get used to such novelties because the growth of emerging nations has passed the point where it is likely to be reversible: and our future world will be different, wholly different, as a result of it.

    I don’t intend to focus on economic changes this afternoon but we should note them: the flow of wealth from West to East: the growing role of Sovereign Wealth Funds, which is huge; the scramble for commodities, especially perhaps in Africa, and the price inflation that is very likely to follow. All these trends are signposted for the future.

    I do want to touch on the inter-dependence of nations where there is one mini-trend I hope is not going to develop.

    Over the last two decades the concept of free trade has become almost universal. Countries that once were collectivist, even communist, embraced free enterprise – and prospered as a result of it.

    The impact of the financial crisis has put a very large question mark on that development in the minds of some of the people running these economies. A body called Global Trade Alert has reported a very significant growth in trade protection – not serious yet but sufficiently widespread to be worrying. A growth in protection that needs watching.

    If more countries adopt protectionist measures, particularly if they are big countries, more particularly of all if they happen to be the United States, their trade rivals will retaliate: this could snowball and have a significant effect on world trade.

    We should remember it was not the Wall Street Crash that caused the depression of the 1930s – it was the policies of Protection that followed the Wall Street Crash that caused the damage.

    Let me now look at the world that is to come – and start with the most basic issue of all: mankind itself. In the 41 years since America landed a Man on the Moon, world population has doubled. Doubled in 41 years. It now grows by as much every twelve years as it grew in the nineteen hundred years from the birth of Christ to the dawn of the 20th century. Startling, isn’t it?

    The trend is accelerating, by 2050 – not far away in planning terms – population will soar to over nine billion souls: this is an increase from today that is equivalent to the population of two more Chinas.

    These are not just statistics: they are people. Men, women and children with hopes, fears, ambitions and needs – for food, water, clothing, education, housing, jobs and every basic of life. As we meet today, pretty much about one-half of the world goes hungry, ill-educated and often without hope: how much worse will the problem be with an additional two billion to care for, 95% of whom will be born in countries who are very poor? Planning for this world needs to begin now: again one illustration will suffice.

    Already, many parts of the Middle-East and North Africa face water shortages; water shortages for families, for agriculture and for industry.
    In North Africa the Nile River has been its supply of water since the dawn of time – but the demands on the Nile will one day become insupportable. In 1900, five million Sudanese depended on the Nile – today it is over 42 million and by 2050 it is forecast to be a minimum of 50 million. Similar statistics apply to every other country alongside the Nile.

    The relevance of this is that action is required now to ensure water supply thirty to forty years ahead. But if no-one acts in time, it will be too late when water shortages become immediate and acute.

    These population projections aren’t fantasy. They’re reality. But they could become a nightmare unless we prepare.

    As population changes so does the future of our world, so does technology. My grandfather – who was in Pittsburgh helping to build the Carnegie Steel Works in the 1870s – never conceived of the combustion engine, let alone aeroplanes. Or the telephone, let alone mobiles. Now rockets and satellites in space arouse little interest amongst the populous as a whole. So what will life be like for our grandchildren?
    We can’t know: but we do know the trend of change. Technology is moving ever faster. It’s getting smaller and more powerful. Cheaper and more accessible. It took the telephone 50 years to reach one quarter of America. It has taken Facebook and Google less than 3 years to reach every corner of the world.

    Science isn’t emotional. It deals in facts. Several hundred years ago it told us the Earth was not spherical – and was not the centre of the Universe. At the time the Christian Church killed men for such heresy – but science was right.

    Now science and technology is the unstoppable motor that is changing every aspect of our lives.

    Consider what it has done. The first integrated circuit – invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments in 1958 – proved to be the fore-runner of silicon chips containing – literally – billions of microscopic circuit elements.

    Nothing in the 20th century has so accelerated change; it led to the computer revolution; to the Digital Age.

    Without that crude circuit board there would be no Silicon Valley; no Internet; no laptop; no Google; no iPods; no iPads, no Blackberrys, no Playstations – and none of the hundreds of millions of jobs they have created. Who knows what challenges lie ahead? – perhaps as a result of the particle beams circulating in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland.

    A few days ago, scientists captured anti-matter for the first time – although only a few grains and only for one-tenth of a second. This may – I emphasise may be a new frontier. It was anti-matter, you may recall, that powered the USS Enterprise in Star Trek – fantasy is becoming reality.

    As science changes how we live, medical science is changing the quality and the length of our lives. 110 years ago, no-one knew of blood groups, hormones or barbiturates. Since then, medicine has given birth to whole new industries. New technologies are delivering better drugs, healthy food, new pesticides, the control of pollution, and advances in forensic medicine.

    Technology and medicine are old partners. The first man to assert that blood circulates and is pumped from the heart was William Harvey. But not until the invention of the microscope in the 1650s was this verified by the discovery of the tiny connections between arteries and veins.

    In a modern parallel, scientists are examining how to combine computer chip technology with pharmaceutical research so they can target drugs to treat specific parts of the body. Imagine – for example – chemotherapy with only minimal side-effects.

    Such science is leading a revolution in medical care: advances in engineering techniques have given us insulin pumps for diabetes; cochlea implants for deafness; and there are realistic prospects of repairing nerve cells for sufferers of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. It may soon be possible to produce artificial heart muscle cells.

    Stem cell research may enable us to grow replacement body parts – experiments in San Diego have already grown a human bladder. We can expect further advances.

    A decade ago, scientists mapped the human genome system. We are daily learning more about how we live and why we die. On the day the mapping was announced, I was lunching with some eminent medical surgeons at one of Britain’s great teaching hospitals.

    What does this mean, I asked? It means – they told me – medicine may determine in a child how that child may die as an adult and, knowing that, they can determine the treatment that may delay death. The life-span for a new baby, born in a country with an advanced medical system, that uses the science that is now available, may rise from the 79/81 years of today to well into the 90s. Consider the social implications of that.

    A few years ago, all this would have seemed like Black Magic. Very soon, fantasy will become reality, in a world we are only barely beginning to glimpse.

    Change is almost always two-faced: sometimes it brings danger.

    Consider our Earth: our blue and green planet has altered. Continents have drifted; Oceans have been formed; Africa and South America have split asunder; species have evolved and become extinct.

    These changes happened over literally hundreds of millions of years … but a few thousand years ago – like everything else in our modern life – it all speeded up. Agriculture began. Vegetation changed. The growing population began to deplete raw – and rare – materials.

    Now, in the last few decades, we have begun to emit radio waves from television, radar and cell-phones, and carbon dioxide emissions have absolutely soared. Planes have filled the skies, and missiles, satellites and space-craft have been propelled beyond our biosphere into orbit.

    For the first time in the long life-time of the Earth, our way of life can affect the future of our planet.

    This is the defining challenge for the future: can we utilize the science that has given us so many innovations to protect our way of life from the effects of those innovations? Once more, a single contemporary example may suffice.

    Science tells us the risks of climate change are real. Arctic summer ice is disappearing faster than we thought: without it, the sea absorbs the sun and melts the permafrost that keeps the lid on Greenhouse gases.

    The burning of fossil fuels continues to raise dioxides. Most – not all, but most – scientists expect this to lead to global warming of between two and five degrees. Does this matter? Yes – it does.

    NASA tells us that when temperatures last rose 2-3% (which they did 35 million years ago) sea levels rose by 25 metres. Even 5 metres would swamp large parts of London, New York, Sydney, Vancouver, Mumbai and Tokyo. Regions of Florida, Louisiana, Bangladesh and the Netherlands would vanish. Singapore would sink. No wonder green energy is such a growing business.

    But here is the dilemma for the policy-maker : we must have energy.

    Our modern world is powered by energy. It is indispensable for economic and political stability. A world without readily available energy is a world that cannot power industry, light homes, cook food, drive cars – it would be chaotic.

    Without energy, we return to life before the industrial revolution: it is unthinkable and it is unimaginable. We have been shamefully wasteful of our energy resources in the past half century and are now paying heavily for it. Oil has risen from $3 a barrel to $80 and rising, as demand has grown and grown.

    And it will not slacken – demand cannot slacken, as Latin America, Africa and Asia continue to industrialise and as population increases.

    So the role of science is going to be pivotal. It must mitigate the impact of fossil fuel degradation and prepare for the post fossil fuel age: this is still many decades ahead of us but, one day, it will come.

    Already science is far advanced in effective methods of capturing and storing carbon before it leaks into the atmosphere although many of the worst polluters around the world don’t yet utilise this technology.

    Alternatives are being developed – solar energy, advanced bio-fuels, fusion, other renewables: all of them have a role to play. So does the safe expansion of nuclear power, probably a bigger role than any of the others, which an increasing number of nations – not least in the Middle East – see as essential to future prosperity.

    We also need science to finalise the electrical car to reduce CO2 emissions. As an estimated 100 million cars are sold each year there will, by next year, be an incredible one billion cars on the planet. An electric motor can make a big contribution.

    Challenges such as these are daunting – and so is the cost but no-one dare ignore them. If we take no action, my generation will not be seriously inconvenienced, but our children/grandchildren may face a disastrous scenario.

    As we look ahead there are acute political and social challenges in nearly every country of the world. The rising cost of caring for more elderly people. The provision of pensions for them. Sufficient leisure and work to keep minds occupied and life worthwhile. Such challenges will alter more than the number and the length of lives: they may change nearly everything that is familiar to us.

    As we prepare for what lies ahead it is re-assuring to recall the past challenges that have been met. For most of my lifetime the world was at risk because NATO and the Warsaw Pact were facing one another with nuclear arsenals that, if unleashed, might destroy much of life as we know it. Reason – and wise politics (not least from past American Presidents like George Bush) prevented such a catastrophe.

    Today, inter-continental carnage on that sort of scale scale is very, very unlikely but – if the world is safer – the dangers of proliferation of nuclear weapons, of regional conflicts and of terrorism loom much larger as viable risks.

    Iran

    Winston Churchill once referred to Russia as “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”.

    Much the same could be said of Iran today. Since the flawed re-election of President Ahmadinejad, there has been widespread internal dissent by hundreds of thousands of individual Iranians. There have been marches, coded speeches, intellectual dissent, as liberty has raised its voice.

    The regime, as we might have expected, has responded with repression but, like others before them, they will find that the demand for change, for something better, for a free and open society, is impossible to smother forever. You cannot arrest freedom and keep it in jail.

    The fear of a nuclear Iran is real. So is the effect of it. If Iran obtains a weapon, the risk of proliferation is very, very high indeed. Iran worries everyone – and destabilises much of the Middle East.

    Why is Iran doing this? The economy is in a mess. The currency is weak. Inflation, interest rates and unemployment are all very high. It’s a very sad comedown for a nation that was a great Empire, when the British and Americans lived in mud huts.

    Nothing is explicable in Iran without understanding the nature of the regime. It is nationalist and hard-line. The real source of power is the Supreme Leader, backed by the Revolutionary Guards, the Army, the Intelligence Services and the Police.

    The President, Ahmadinejad – so often the face of Iran – is in truth a secondary figure. He is not the decisive decision-maker. Too many people over-react to his provocative remarks without realising his subordinate position. He is the Apprentice, not the Sorcerer. The monkey, not the organ-grinder.

    What should we do? First, remember the regime is not the nation – as the internal dissent vividly makes clear. Even so, while the clerical regime survives, we have to deal with it. It is possible negotiations may improve relations; and of course we should continue to try. But, because of the threat she poses, we must supplement dialogue with incentives and sanctions.

    Some advocate military conflict – and, unattractive though it is in every conceivable way, we cannot emphatically rule it out. But, for the time being, sanctions and political pressure seem the right way forward. We can only hope that they are sufficient.

    Arab-Israel

    The Arab/Israeli dispute colours the view of the Middle East. It spills beyond its own borders and it has scarred politics for decades. And is it not absurd that we know the two-State solution we seek, but cannot turn it into reality? Morality, as well as practicality, says we need a solution.

    After several decades, a bilateral negotiated settlement is still far away: many wonder whether if it will ever be possible. Attempts at incremental agreements – “confidence building” in the jargon – have failed again and again. Peace negotiations resemble nothing so much as the mating of the Black Widow Spider. Once the dance is over, death and destruction invariably follow. How often we have seen that, and how damaging it is.

    The present situation is close to stalemate. Palestinians are split. Secular Fatah control the West Bank. Islamic Hamas rule in Gaza. Hamas deny the right of Israel to even exist. They will not renounce violence nor accept previous agreements made by Palestinian negotiators. Meanwhile, Israel builds settlements the world deems illegal.

    Is there a solution? Yes, of course – the obvious one, a negotiated settlement. But, if that cannot be achieved, if negotiators from Israel and the Palestinians cannot – or will not – make the concessions necessary to compromise because of their internal politics, what then?

    Can the international community allow this dispute to run on and on forever – or will the time come when, in the wider interest, they have no choice other than to press more firmly their own ideas for a settlement?

    Understandably, the protagonists would hate this: but, if both sides take positions that impede progress, what alternative exists?

    Will this be difficult? Of course it will. It is a gamble, a high risk toss of the coin, and one that will require great political courage with all concerned. But in the Middle East, as much as anywhere and more important than in most parts of the world, statesmanship is essential to enable the region to fulfil its potential, without fear of conflict.

    One conflict is now worldwide. It is important to understand that terror – Al Qaeda being an example – threatens Muslim societies as much as, and in some cases, more than, Christian societies. Al Qaeda hate the Saudi Arabians more than they hate the Americans and the British. The Taliban, too, would change societies back to pre-enlightened days with a rigid approach to religion and to civil life that is abhorrent to most people. We have seen vivid – and terrifying – examples of that intolerance recently in both Iran and Pakistan. The concept of stoning a woman to death, or executing another because she advocated Christianity, is something that to us seems to come out of an age many centuries ago, but still exists in parts of the world.

    This battle against intolerance and unreason is one in which every State has an interest. It is not a short-term conflict, nor one capable of a clear-cut finite ending: it is too complex, too chaotic for that.

    But it is one from which no nation can safely exclude itself – we all have an interest in the outcome.

    One final thought about the future. Sometimes in politics – and in life – it is necessary to stand back and take stock. Now is such a moment.

    Our world has many complexities, but far more opportunities. If we arrange our affairs to take advantage of them, our future can be so much more promising than even the most pessimistic can believe.

    Sometimes I think we should be more aware – more self-confident – of what we can do. Young men and women today will see things, do things, know things, be things, that their parents and grand-parents would never have dreamed of. We must make sure that they can take advantage of those opportunities.

    As much of what I have said is about science, let me conclude with a quote from the man Voltaire called “the Father of modern science”.

    In the preface to his essays, Francis Bacon – a philosopher in Elizabethan England – observed, and I quote, that: “We have planted things that are likely to last.”

    So have we, in our time, planted things that are likely to last.

    Throughout history, change has been an ally. In the future – if we are wise – it will continue to be so.

  • Mr Major’s Press Conference in Moscow – 20 April 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s press conference in Moscow on Saturday 20th April 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me talk about the summit and the adjacent meetings I have had during the period I have been here in Moscow.

    The summit began last evening with a fairly extensive discussion on the situation in Lebanon. I think all of you know that there is a fair amount of diplomatic activity going on, even as we speak there are a number of Foreign Ministers at the moment engaged either in Lebanon, or in Israel or in Syria, to see what can be done to bring about a ceasefire. It was our view that a ceasefire would be the first step, beyond that we need something that is going to be rather more permanent to prevent re-occurrence of the difficulties there have been over the last few days.

    We moved on this morning to the main reason for the summit being called, you will recall it was suggested by President Yeltsin when he met the G7 in Halifax last year, and that was to examine comprehensively the question of nuclear safety. And I think the fact that the G7 attended in full, with President Yeltsin, is an indication of the importance that we attach to that process.

    Many people I think were quite sceptical at the time as to whether anything would emerge from a summit of this sort. In fact there has been quite a comprehensive range of agreements, some of them very technical, many of them the subject of discussion for some time. And I am extremely grateful to Neil Hurst for the work that he has done on that over the months that have gone.

    But let me just summarise the main agreements that have been reached: an agreement to bring into force the nuclear safety convention, we have long wanted that, it has now happened; agreement to work together on a new convention on the safety of radioactive waste management; thirdly, a commitment by Russia to sign the London Dumping Convention Amendment, that is the amendment which effectively bans the dumping of radioactive waste at sea; a programme to help prevent the illicit trafficking of nuclear materials, that too is something the United Kingdom has sought for some time and we are delighted to have that agreement.

    And of course also there was agreed at this summit a new impetus to the conclusion, by September we think is possible, of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which bars all nuclear explosions on the basis of a zero yield. And I know from time to time in the past there have been conflicting interpretations of what is meant by zero-yield. Let me make it clear that what we mean by this, and what I think is understood by our partners, is that no nuclear explosion of any kind, however small, is permitted. That too I think is an agreement that many people will welcome.

    Over lunch, we discussed the situation, particularly as far as Chernobyl is concerned. We emphasised our commitment to make real the programme contained in the Memorandum of Understanding that we signed with Ukraine last December, and we were joined for this particular discussion by President Kuchma. You will recall, I am sure, there are three elements to the problem with Chernobyl: firstly, there are the grants that we made available to assist with work; secondly, there is the amount of international finance that will be made available to provide alternative sources of energy, that finance is agreed, it is not yet drawn down, the Ukrainians are still determining precisely what they need to do; and thirdly, there is the question of the temporary covering, the temporary sarcophagus over the reactor that exploded. There is no additional financing agreed for that.

    At the moment there is a European Union study being undertaken. When that is concluded, which will be later this year, we will need to look at the question of funding that and how it will be done. I have little doubt that it will need to be an international effort. I don’t think it is remotely likely that the Ukrainians would be able to fund that on their own and I think post-Chernobyl no-one is seriously going to doubt the need for that work still to be done. But at the moment we still await the experts’ report on the sarcophagus. As soon as we have got it, we will be able to move forward.

    One happy development today, President Kuchma said that he would see if it was possible, and he thought that it was possible, to close another reactor at Chernobyl by the end of the year. And we spent some time also discussing alternative energy sources and the need to develop them in Ukraine and beyond.

    We spent some time discussing Bosnia, I won’t elaborate upon that discussion unless questioned, except to say that although it has been more quiescent lately, I don’t think anyone is in any doubt about the importance of making sure the civil development of Bosnia proceeds, and that is a matter to which we will regularly have to return.

    At the conclusion of the summit proper, I had a bilateral for a little over an hour with President Clinton. We discussed a range of matters: Lebanon; the importance of Most Favoured Nation status from America for China, that is important to us of course because of the impact upon Hong Kong and I discussed that with the President; we discussed also the forthcoming Commonwealth meeting concerning Nigeria and the present internal situation there; and I took the opportunity of dealing with one domestic matter by briefing the President on the present state of the legislation on Northern Ireland and the preparatory work for the elections, the forum and the all-party talks that we hope will follow the elections, and that was an extremely worthwhile occasion.

    Let me just say one thing in conclusion before we seek to take any of the questions you may have. I think it has been a very valuable visit, very valuable because of the agreements that have been signed. But also very valuable, to be frank, because it is extremely useful on these occasions, you have the opportunity of discussing in a relatively informal manner in the sidelines of such conference a range of issues with the other Heads of Government who are present, and I think that increasingly close contact is a very reassuring element of international affairs these days. Heads of Government tend to know one another far better and far more personally than ever used to be the case in the past and I think that is immensely useful.

    During those bilaterals I had specific bilaterals with Prime Minister Chretien; President Yeltsin of Course; Mr Chernomyrdin, the Prime Minister; and also, as you know, a meeting last evening here to discuss the European problems of beef with the President of the Commission, the President of the European Council and the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany. So we were able to take the opportunity of reviewing the situation whilst we were here. So all in all a very useful and worthwhile visit.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION:

    On Ulster, we have heard that President Clinton was praising your efforts towards securing peace, and he also apparently made mention of the need for another ceasefire. Could you tell us a little more about that?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The President has been very helpful for some time and I have absolutely no doubt at all that he will continue to play a constructive role in helping to take the process further. We do need a ceasefire. There is no immediate sign, I have to say, from Sinn Fein and the IRA that one is imminent. But I think there is no justification for them holding off from a ceasefire. For a very long time they have asked for the prospect of all-party talks, they have asked for a proper consideration of the problems of Northern Ireland. All those lie just weeks ahead. And upon that basis, to take them at their own evaluation, there is no justification for anything other than a comprehensive ceasefire so that they can join the talks that lie immediately ahead. I very much hope that they will do that. But let me emphasise again. If they do not, we will proceed without them. Sinn Fein and the IRA cannot, by not offering a ceasefire, stop the process that is now in hand, they cannot stop the elections, they cannot stop the forum meeting and they cannot stop the beginning of negotiations on 10 June. All of those things will go ahead, but of course one would like to see a ceasefire.

    QUESTION (The Guardian):

    You say that personal relationships are important. Did you feel that you advanced your personal relationship with Mr Zyuganov in your meeting with him yesterday and is Britain taking the [indistinct] that he represents seriously enough?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I had an extremely good meeting with Mr Zyuganov yesterday. We discussed a range of issues. And I read with astonishment the way it was reported this morning. I don’t recall Mr Zyuganov saying to me any of the things that were reported in the media this morning and I am at an utter loss to discover how they got there. Perhaps if some of those present wrote them, they can explain to me how they got there. But I can certainly tell you they did not get there on the basis of what Mr Zyuganov said to me in the meeting that we had yesterday, in no sense did they. It was a good meeting, it was a constructive meeting. I asked him about his programme, he answered about his programme, and we discussed a range of other matters about the situation in Russia generally. But at no stage did he speak in the aggressive manner in which he is reported in the Western press as having spoken to me yesterday. It simply did not happen.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, obviously quite an important meeting last night.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Which meeting are you talking about?

    SAME MAN:

    Sorry! The meeting with Mr. Carl Sherak [phon] over the question of the beef ban. Do you feel more optimistic today that we are slightly closer to a lifting of the ban?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Yes. I think we have made progress. Of course, that wasn’t a decision-making meeting last night, it couldn’t be. Decisions are for the European Union as a whole. Self-evidently, the Agriculture Commissioner will be deeply involved in these and neither of the other members of the European Union nor the Agriculture Commissioner were present last evening but it was an opportunity to explain in a relaxed atmosphere a good deal more of how this matter is perceived in the United Kingdom and to explain some of the misconceptions, as we see them, that are, present amongst our European partners.

    What we have seen since the ban was instituted firstly by our European partners nationally and then endorsed by the European Union collectively is that the beef market has fallen very dramatically in the European countries as well. The effect of that ban on British beef, which is unjustified on health grounds, has also reflected in a collapse of confidence in the beef market amongst our European partners as well.

    I took the opportunity last night of making several things quite clear:

    Firstly, the fundamental point that there is no public health problem. The scientific advice is unequivocal, British beef is safe to eat – the view of British scientists, the view of the World Health Authority, the view of scientists in other areas as well. All the measures recommended by the scientists have been adopted by the British Government, all those measures are in place. The problem, as our European partners have skid, is one of confidence not one of public health and we have introduced measures in Britain. Those measures will involve destroying elderly animals that would otherwise have entered the market; those elderly animals are the ones that people were most concerned about, they will no longer be in the market. There is no justification for the ban in my judgement at all and the ban has a number of absurdities in it. Let me just illustrate a couple of the absurdities:

    Firstly, calves born after 1 April this year when we instituted the new controls on foodstuffs, under the ban they can’t be exported. That is nonsense, total nonsense. Those calves couldn’t possibly have been exposed to BSE in any conceivable way. I made that point to our European partners.

    Secondly, let me take another illustration. A farmer – and there are a great many farmers like this in the United Kingdom – whose animals have never eaten anything but grass, never close to any possibly contaminated feed at all, and yet they are banned and so are animals identified as coming from a demonstrably safe herd and so are animals coming from herds no members of which breeds, no member of which has ever had BSE – palpably absurd!

    I took the opportunity of running through some of those absurdities last night in the meeting we had. It was a very constructive meeting, it was not a decision-taking meeting, it was a meeting where we were all addressing a problem that now affects the whole of the European beef market, not just a British problem, and I think it was a worthwhile and constructive meeting and I think it will have played its part in helping inform people better for the decisions that will need to be taken in the days that lie ahead and I am delighted I had the meeting, I think it was very worthwhile.

    QUESTION (John Craig, Daily Express):

    On beef, the impression we get, however, is that you didn’t receive what one might describe as support for your position. We have heard what you said to them but was there any indication that they said: “OK! Yes, we’ll take that on board and we will go back to our colleagues and recommend that because of the action Britain has now taken the ban can be lifted!”?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The first thing that needs to be done is that people have to understand the reality of what the situation is and not operate under the misunderstandings that there have been over recent weeks. I think I removed a number of those misunderstandings though I am not going to anticipate decisions that have to be taken not by the people who were here last night but by the European Union as a whole. I don’t think that would be wise, it certainly wouldn’t be prudent and I am concerned about the whole of the European Union understanding the position but let me reiterate I think it was very worthwhile having that meeting last night, I think there is a much greater understanding of what is happening across Europe. Each of the other people present of course learned what was happening in the other European countries and the collapse in beef confidence does stretch across Europe, that was apparent, so I reiterate what I said. I am not going to be drawn further on the issue. It was a worthwhile meeting, it was a constructive meeting and I think it was time very well spent.

    QUESTION (Phil Reeves, The Independent):

    Prime Minister, it is pretty plain that the Russians are continuing to prosecute a war in Chechnya despite the ceasefire that Mr. Yeltsin announced on March 31st. Did you raise this issue with him, did you discuss the question of the violation of human rights going on in Chechnya and what was Mr. Yeltsin’s response?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Of course I discussed Chechnya with President Yeltsin while I was here. He is looking to see what can be done to reach a negotiated settlement, clearly he needs to do that if it is possible. It needs two sides to negotiate was the point he made to me but he is clearly looking to see whether that can be achieved; it is desirable in order to move towards a settlement in Chechnya. He indicated to me that there were many areas of Chechnya where there was no difficulty, that it existed rather fiercely in a number of areas but in some areas it had gone away completely. I can neither verify nor dispute that, I report what the President said to me and he was certainly seeking to take a constructive role to see whether they could reach a settlement.

    I am sure that is so for two reasons: firstly, it is self-evidently the right thing to do and secondly, it is self-evidently the prudent thing to do; it would clearly be extremely helpful in the present political atmosphere if some movement could satisfactorily occur on Chechyna.

    QUESTION (Jon Sopel, BBC):

    Sir Edward Heath, writing in the “Express” today, has said that if you lost another by-election you should call a general election. Do you agree with that and if you don’t do you think you could still go the full term?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I haven’t seen Sir Edward’s article. Sir Edward is a very wise man and I always read very carefully what previous leaders of the Conservative Party have to say. I don’t always agree with them but I will read it when I return with some interest, but I won’t promise to agree with it.

    QUESTION:

    We have got the “Telegraph” hitting your Government with an unusually strong editorial, the “Sun” saying that you are depressed, rumours of Tories about to defect, some misunderstanding with John Redwood.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Were you present at Question Time last Tuesday?

    QUESTIONER:

    I am afraid I missed that.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am sorry you missed that because I read I was depressed but doubt many people who attended Question Time on Tuesday would have thought that was the case and as far as the “Telegraph” is concerned the “Telegraph” must write what the “Telegraph” thinks it must write, I must believe what I believe to be accurate and have no intention of commenting on what newspapers write or newspapers say, they must take responsibility for their own words.

    I will tell you what I am interested in. I am not so much interested in that; I would have a look at some of the things that are happening at the moment, some of the things perhaps that people ought to look at more often.

    I don’t think there is any doubt whatsoever at the Moment that life is getting better in the United Kingdom after the recession, self-evidently so and is going to get better yet and in case you think that is a standard bit of politicians oratory – “He would say that, wouldn’t he?” – let me give you some concrete examples of why that is the case:

    Mortgage rates at their lowest level since the early 60s; I think I recall reading that the Beatles were top of the charts the last time mortgage rates were at this level, I think the song was “I Feel Fine!” and understandably so as mortgage rates fall. The proportion of new mortgages taken out by women more than doubled between 1983 and 1994, around 18 per cent, that is quite a significant change. Look at education! Huge increases in the choices and opportunities for people in the education sector. Look at changes in other peoples’ personal circumstances! 27 million people a couple of years ago took holidays abroad.

    If you look at what is happening, when can you last remember inflation below 3 per cent for the third successive year, unemployment lower that any other major economy in Europe, investment rising and growth as high as most other countries in Europe and better than almost any other country in Europe, more people in work than any other major economy anywhere else in Europe?

    I will extend the list if you like but they are I think what in newspaper parlance you call “feel good factors” and they are all becoming very apparent so if you want to know how I feel, I am delighted we have low inflation, delighted we have falling unemployment, delighted we have increasing growth, delighted we have good investment and I intend to make sure that we maintain the most benevolent economic situation we have seen for a very long time indeed and I intend very cheerfully to tell as many people as I possibly can that that is what the situation is.

  • Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview in Moscow – 19 April 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s doorstep interview in Moscow on Friday 19th April 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me just say a word or two about the meetings I have had earlier today. A number of meetings: firstly with Prime Minister Chretien, mainly about Commonwealth matters; later on after that meetings with a number of opinion formers in Moscow at the present time; a very useful meeting both Mr Yavlinsky and separately with Mr Zyuganov; and a bilateral in the last hour or so with President Yeltsin; and very shortly I look forward to seeing Prime Minister Chernomyrdin. So it has been an admirable opportunity to run through a whole range of matters that are being discussed in Moscow at the moment.

    The bilateral with the President covered a wide range of matters, as you would expect: the summit tomorrow; of course the questions relating to NATO; a number of bilateral issues; I was able to indicate that we will be increasing our assistance in the Know How Fund by another 50 million to assist with various aspects of reform and good government in Russia. I don’t think I will seek to detail all the elements of the discussion, perhaps you may care to ask questions to pick out the points of greatest interest.

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, do you support Boris Yeltsin’s re-election?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It is not for anyone outside Russia to determine who should be the President of Russia, that is a matter for the Russian people and it would be impertinent of me to express a preference. We do have a very strong view that the reform programme is very important, we wish to see the reform programme proceed and I think that is a view that is very widely held right across the West.

    QUESTION:

    What is your impression of Mr Zyuganov?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I only had a brief discussion with Mr Zyuganov. We discussed the areas of the campaign that he was most interested in, he set out his views on those. But it was a half hour meeting, too soon I think to reach a firm conclusion.

    QUESTION:

    Did Mr Zyuganov say that the West should have nothing to fear from a communist victory?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think Mr Zyuganov explained what he was about, what he saw as the priorities in this country, and self-evidently he does not believe that those priorities would concern people elsewhere. I indicated to him the importance that we attach to the reform programme.

    QUESTION:

    Did the subject of the Middle East come up and what perhaps the G7 here in Moscow this weekend ought to be saying as a way of moving the peace process forward?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Yes, I discussed the particular question of Lebanon and the current difficulties with President Yeltsin, and I am sure that will come up later on today. I think there is no doubt that what we need to seek very speedily is an end to the hostilities that are proceeding, perhaps only a temporary pause in the first instance while a more firm conclusion is reached. It may be difficult to reach a positive conclusion that will last for a long time. If we can reach an interim settlement, an interim cessation of the hostilities, I think that at least will be a first step and I think people will try and do that over the next 48 hours.

    QUESTION:

    Are you confident that you can persuade the other European leaders to recommend a lifting of the ban on British beef?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Well I have no idea about that. I think it would have been quite astonishing if, since we are all gathered here, I were not to discuss the problem with them, and that is what I propose to do. But of course only a part of the European Union is here, the Agricultural Commissioner is not here, so I think this is an occasion to set out British concerns and I will do that very clearly and very crisply. I don’t think it is a matter on which there are likely to be conclusions because the right people are not here. But I don’t believe the ban on British beef is justified. The fact that it has been indicated not just by British scientists, but by the World Health Organisation and by the Commissioner himself, that British beef is safe, suggests to me that there is no logic in a continuing ban on British beef. But that is not a matter that can be lifted by the people who are meeting here. What I can do is impress upon them the strength of feeling in the United Kingdom and the extent to which we think it is an unreasonable decision that has been reached and that it is highly desirable that that ban is lifted as speedily as it can be.

    QUESTION:

    Can the G7 do anything to help to resolve the crisis in the Middle East? Are you hoping that there will be a communique at the end of this to say what should be done?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think we are more concerned with action than communiques, to be frank. The G7 members, both separately and collectively of course, are in touch with the relevant parties in the Middle East. The Foreign Secretary is deeply engaged, Mr Charette from France is there at the present moment, so is Warren Christopher. I think there is no doubt that it will be discussed and no doubt that we will be in touch with the parties, but whether that will be done collectively or individually remains to be determined.

    QUESTION:

    And the common position from France, the United States and Russia?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think the common position is perfectly clear. A common final settlement, that remains to be discussed, but a common position that we need to stop what we have seen over the last few days, both the firing from Hezbollah into Israel and the attacks from Israel back into Lebanon, both of those need to cease as speedily as possible. There will be no difficulty about reaching that decision.

    QUESTION:

    Did you raise the subject of Chechnya with Mr Yeltsin?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We have had a brief discussion, yes.

  • Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview in Cumbria – 27 October 1995

    Below, in abbreviated form, is Mr Major’s doorstep interview in Cumbria on 27th October 1995.

    QUESTION:

    [Asked about President Yeltsin]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Very sorry he is ill and wish him a full and speedy recovery.

    He has made a remarkable contribution to democracy, not only in Russia but in the rest of the world.

    QUESTION:

    [Asked about the Conservative Party and family values]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We have always been, and will always be, the party of the family.

    The Family Homes and Domestic Violence Bill was introduced as a non-controversial bill. It implemented the recommendations of the Law Commission. It passed through the House of Commons and the House of Lords and no objections were raised.

    My party believes in the institution of marriage. It is only right to examine the concerns which have now been expressed.

    QUESTION:

    [Asked about divorce]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Wait for the Queen’s Speech.

  • Mr Major’s Press Conference in Halifax – 17 June 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s press conference in Halifax, held on Saturday 17th June 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me, before I talk about the conference, express my thanks to the Prime Minister for the organisation of the conference, but perhaps even more than that, to the people of Halifax who have been extraordinarily warm in their reception right the way through this G7. I have attended quite a number of G7s now, I cannot recall one where people were so friendly. Perhaps in a smaller town than we sometimes visit, the sight of limousines clocking up the road for ordinary people going around their work is not quite so frustrating, but whatever the reason, the reception here has been extraordinarily warm. I felt that and I think all my colleagues did as well. And I would like to express my thanks to the people of Halifax for that.

    In the summit over the last day or so, we have had the opportunity of looking at some long term problems and also addressing some of the problems that lie immediately ahead of us. A number of decisions have been taken, you will have seen the communiques no doubt but I will elaborate them for you briefly.

    We agreed last year that we would have a look, on this occasion, at the international institutions and come forward with some proposals for their reform. We cannot impose that reform of course, we can make suggestions, particularly as far as the United Nations and the IFIs are concerned, and we have honoured that commitment. I hope we will now be able to take those suggestions forward.

    In particular we have agreed 12 proposals to strengthen the effectiveness of the international financial institutions. I have no intention of running through all of them but I think the determination to improve IMF surveillance on the back of the difficulties that one saw in Mexico recently is self-evidently of importance and so is handling financial crises generally.

    We have also put forward a number of proposals for strengthening the United Nations and they focus essentially on eliminating duplication, eliminating waste, increasing efficiency, as well as reviewing the method of contributions to the United Nations to put its finances on a sounder basis for the 1990s and the turn of the century.

    We will now carry this forward with our personal representatives and try and persuade the rest of the United Nations membership of the merits of our approach. I stress that because this is emphatically not something that the G7 either could, or should, seek to impose upon the United Nations and we will be in the business of persuading people that it is right to proceed with these reforms.

    We have also looked, yet again, at the nature of the G7 itself. Over the last few years we have managed to cut down on much of the pomp and ceremony that has attended these meetings. A great deal of the fat was taken away at Naples last year and Prime Minister Chretien has taken that process of reform towards making it a better structured working meeting a good deal further this year. I congratulate him on that and I look forward to Jacques Chirac taking it even further next year. We may not get there immediately, but I think the goal is to move much more towards the sort of original intent of these summits, a relatively small gathering in which matters can be discussed both formally and informally and without the inevitable necessity for the communiques that I know so many people have been so interested in in the last couple of days.

    We have also given quite a strong push to liberalising world trade. The Uruguay Round was very welcome, it carried matters a good deal forward but it by no means left us with a liberal world trading system. There is a great deal more to be done, a great deal of unfinished business as well as new areas to be tackled. Amongst the new areas of course, non-tariff barriers of various kinds, investment, government procurement and a range of related matters.

    I think that is important not just because I support free trade, but if one is concerned about the position of many of the less well off, some of the downright poor nations of the world, the greater the extent that the world’s markets are open to their products, the greater I think they will begin to have a capacity to deal with some of the appalling problems that many of them face.

    Allied to that, we have also taken some further steps to look at how we might relieve the debt of the very poorest countries, a matter that the United Kingdom has been leading really for the last 8 or 9 years as a matter of extreme importance.

    I hope as a result of the discussions we have had that we will soon be in the position where the IMF will be prepared to pledge some of its gold, and eventually perhaps even gold sales, to assist some of the very poorest countries.

    We also agreed that we would repeat the Detroit Job Summit, not in Detroit but in France at some date yet to be specified but probably in the first half of next year. The strategy and purpose of that is as it was before. There was a welcome reaffirmation again that the way to create jobs was by having a more flexible labour market, up-grading skills, deregulation. And no-one was talking of large artificial short-term expenditure packages that put a burden on the budget, create jobs in the short term and probably lead to inflation and more difficulties in the medium and longer term.

    Much of the agenda in the early part of this conference, unsurprising to some of us that it turned out this way, was that much of the agenda was seized by events in Bosnia. I don’t think there is any doubt that events there have taken a turn for the worst over the last few days. There has also been some confusion publicly over the role and purpose of the Rapid Reaction Force. Let me say firstly that I am delighted that the Rapid Reaction Force got unanimous support from our partners here in Halifax, unanimous and very warm support from all our partners in Halifax.

    Let me make a couple of things clear again about the Rapid Reaction Force. The purpose of it is essentially twofold: firstly to enable the protection forces to carry out their existing mandate more effectively; and secondly to improve the protection forces’ ability to protect themselves whenever and wherever that may be necessary. The force will be part of the United Nations protection forces and it will be under United Nations command, and that means the French General, General Janvier, and Rupert Smith, the British General, commanding there.

    On Friday morning, early in the morning, the Security Council passed resolution 998 which gave the formal authority that was necessary to the despatch of the Rapid Reaction Force to Bosnia. Because of the difficulties that the American President has with the Republican leadership in Congress, the details of the question of paying for the force, reluctantly it has been necessary to put that to one side for the time being. It will need to be sorted out quickly, and I believe it will be, and our American friends are well aware of this. When I saw President Clinton yesterday he acknowledged the problems that he faces with Congress at present, but he reiterated the pledge that he had made at dinner on Thursday night that the United States would take its share of the cost. That is also the view of all the other Heads of Government gathered here, that their countries also would take their share of the cost.

    That is by no means an exhaustive account of the issues we have tackled, we made a considerable amount of progress on the environment, in looking at international crime and terrorism. It was extremely helpful to have Boris Yeltsin arrive last evening for discussions over dinner and more discussions this morning, and I think that underlines yet again the importance of the Russian political contribution which I hope and expect will be further developed in the G7 next year. We had a good discussion of Chechnya and of what can be done to promote a peaceful solution there.

    We also agreed, following President Yeltsin’s arrival, that we would have a summit in Moscow, on a date yet to be determined but in the first half of next year, to discuss various aspects of nuclear safety. There is a big agenda there. It is I think entirely appropriate for the members of the G8 to get together, possibly with others as well, still to be determined, in order to discuss what really is a very wide agenda. And we will be putting some experts together to look in detail at the matters we might productively discuss in Moscow next year.

    And President Yeltsin also took the opportunity to advise us of the up-to-date position in the south of Russia with the difficulties they face at the moment with the hostages. This is a frightful tragedy already and potentially, unless we are fortunate, the most serious terrorist incident that anybody will be able to remember. So there was a great deal of sympathy for the hostages there and for the dreadful situation and the predicament that President Yeltsin found himself in.

    I will not expand on these points any further at the moment but I will endeavour to take questions. If we could deal with questions for some time on the conference I think that would be helpful, there may be one or two others, we will take those later, but let us deal with matters to do with the conference.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (Mark Pinder, AFX News):

    Prime Minister, given your push to liberalise world trade, how would you deal with criticism that this multilateral summit has been mostly silent on the US unilateral threat of sanctions against Japan?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We are in favour of multilateralism rather than bilateralism, and that is known both to the United States and it is known to Japan. But at the moment both Japan and the United States are inhibited in discussing that matter with others because they are reaching towards their own conclusion to this, I think everybody accepted that and honoured the fact that that was the case. But the point was made that we believe in multilateral solutions to world trading problems and not bilateral solutions, and I think that was acknowledged and understood.

    QUESTION (David Boyle, New Economics Magazine):

    President Chirac described currency speculation yesterday as the Aids of the world economy, if that is the way he feels why does the summit fail to discuss the … levy at all and why does it simply call for the encouragement of the removal of capital market restrictions further?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    President Chirac expressed a view, he also agreed to the summit communique, we discussed all that. I think many people have a distaste for currency speculation. But of course we have to look at what in reality it is practical to do. If you were to take the sum total of all the foreign exchange reserved of all the G7 nations gathered around the table, you would find they would be but a portion of the movement over the New York exchanges on a daily basis. So clearly artificial means to curb currency speculation, I think from time to time at the fringes there are certain things one can do, I won’t say there is nothing that can be done, but I think the work that can be done in that fashion is very much on the margins of events. What really we were concentrating on rather more than that was the determination to try and remove the causes that generated currency instability, and that of course is a theme that I think the G7 have been following for some considerable time.

    QUESTION (Robert Chope, FT):

    Have you been disappointed by the reaction to the gold sales proposal which now appears to have been pushed further back and we are left with pledging as an alternative, do you think that is a practical alternative that would be as effective?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think it will be effective, yes. Not everyone is undilutedly keen even to mention the wicked word gold in this context, but since the IMF has no other resources, it is gold we are talking about. From my point of view it doesn’t really matter whether it is pledged in order to raise resources or whether it is sold. The original proposition, one of the propositions for selling the gold, was simply to raise the capital, to maintain the capital of course but to use the interest on the capital. I think that can be done the same way in terms of pledging. What matters is the end product for the countries who will receive assistance and I am confident as a result of the discussions we have had that we will make progress on that.

    QUESTION (Nicholas Witchell, BBC):

    There is no reference to Chechnya in the Chairman’s statement, is that out of deference to Mr Yeltsin’s presence here? And on Bosnia, has Mr Yeltsin produced some new ideas on settling the conflict there?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think there are any new ideas on settling the conflict there. Whenever necessary, President Yeltsin has used his influence with Belgrade and encouraged Belgrade to use their influence with Parle. That has been the case in the past and he reiterated this morning that he would do that whenever it was necessary. And of course there has been a very constructive part played in the Contact Group by Andrei Kozyrev and very close relationships with the Russians. Indeed if you go back just a few years, it would have been almost inconceivable to imagine the degree of political cooperation that has taken place between the Western nations and Russia over Bosnia, and that will continue. But neither President Yeltsin, nor frankly, Nicholas, anyone else, has a simple and ready made off the shelf solution to the nightmare of Bosnia at present.

    Chechnya was not included, you are quite right, I am sure people will be asked questions about that, it was not included. It was not a subject of great discussion. We asked what the present situation was. Most people had their mind pitched more immediately upon the problems of the hostages and I think that is probably the principal reason why there was no specific mention. Though I think you will find that the Chairman of the meeting will probably mention it, will no doubt by now have done so, in his press conference.

    QUESTION (Harold Freedman, IHT):

    On Chechnya we have heard that at dinner last night a number of G7 leaders, including yourself, delivered a fairly stern lecture to Mr Yeltsin saying that if he had done more talking and less military action then he would not find himself in the predicament he is in right now with the hostages. Could you comment on that, is that true? Secondly, from your talks with US and Japanese counterparts are you optimistic or pessimistic about a resolution of the US/Japanese car dispute?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t know whether I would categorise it as a stern lecture. There was some discussion of the matter, that is certainly true, but stern lecture is not really in the nature of these rather intimate round table discussions and neither would it really be very productive. I think from time to time people seem inclined to read a stern lecture to my country, I don’t think I would respond very happily to that on these occasions and I don’t think it would be a very productive way for people to behave. And far be it for me to put thoughts in President Yeltsin’s mind, but I think he would probably react the same way. So discussion, yes; stern lecture, I don’t think I would have called it a stern lecture.

    QUESTION:

    [Inaudible].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think there was a general discussion, I don’t want to go into the details of precisely who said what at the meeting.

    On your second question, I very much hope they are going to be able to settle the problems with US/Japan, they certainly believe they are making progress but that was not a substantive matter for discussion at the dinner last night, there was a passing reference to it. There was discussion during the day yesterday on the subject of US/Japan, but reverting to the point I made earlier and the point that we believe these things should be settled on a multilateral rather than a bilateral basis, the feeling was that progress was being made, that special circumstances did apply, we were reliably informed, but our view was that multilateralism should generally prevail.

    QUESTION (George Jones, Daily Telegraph):

    If I could just pick up on your concern and the concern the Foreign Secretary has expressed about Bosnia and the upsurge in fighting around Sarajevo. There is a report in the Financial Times today that if there has to be a sort of enforced withdrawal of the peacekeeping forces there it would take another 20,000 British troops there to ensure that that happened. Is that a realistic estimate of your contingency plans?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am not going to go into the contingency plans except to say we have contingency plans for every foreseeable circumstance, at least every foreseeable circumstance that we have envisaged. But I think when one comes to that numbers game you can almost pay your own money and take your own choice, it depends what set of difficulties you stand up against the likely withdrawal. Whatever you put into the assessment on one side would lead to a difference in numbers on the other side, but I am not going to confirm that figure.

    QUESTION (David Smith, Channel 4 News):

    Nuclear and the proposed summit in Moscow, was there any discussion this morning with President Yeltsin on the nuclear programme with Iran and any evidence that he is prepared to listen more than when President Clinton raised it with him recently in Moscow?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I should emphasise that we are talking of civil nuclear, in case anybody misunderstands that, we are talking about civil nuclear safety in terms of the conference next year. There was not substantive discussion about Iran, there was reference to it, most certainly, but it was really simply in the context of the matters that we might examine at the conference next year rather than a structured discussion on the particular Russian/Iranian situation.

    FOREIGN SECRETARY:

    Can I add a point, that the Chairman’s statement does call on all states not to collaborate with Iran in any way which could help them acquire a nuclear weapons capability, and that is something of course the Russians agreed.

    QUESTION (New Economics Magazine):

    Considering that the appeasement of genocide in Bosnia is now threatening the whole post-European order, is it not strange that the statement this morning mentions a very strong determination of the G7 to enforce UN resolutions regarding Iraq and Libya but does not mention those regarding Bosnia, and also it mentions a very strong determination to make those accountable who were responsible for genocide in Rwanda and Burundi and mentions the international tribunal, but does not express a similar determination regarding those responsible in former Yugoslavia?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t recognise the introduction to your statement as having a great deal of connection with reality as I understand it. I don’t recognise the point about appeasement in Bosnia. In terms before the United Nations protection forces went in, in the year before they went in, there was something in excess, I take the figures from memory so they may be mildly out but not much I think, something over 100,000 deaths in central Bosnia. In the year after the United Nations protection forces were there there were less than 5,000, I think less than 3,000. If by appeasement you mean the Western nations should themselves have declared war on one or both sides in Bosnia and gone in in order to keep a peace in that fashion, then I have to say to you that is not what has traditionally happened in terms of United Nations peacekeeping and neither, in the particular circumstances of Bosnia, would it be a practical proposition.

    Almost the first thing I did when the Bosnian crisis broke was to actually seek military advice from our own senior military advisers in London as to how many troops would be necessary in order to prevent the fighting that was then taking place in Bosnia. I know other Heads of Government took the same sort of judgment and sought the same sort of advice. And the answer, in order to keep the parties apart, was something in the region of 400,000 NATO troops. And not only would you need to put 400,000 NATO troops in in order to keep the combatants apart, you would need to keep them there to ensure that the combatants remained apart and when at some stage in the future you left them the combatants may well start again, such is the nature of the ancient feuds there, unless there is a political settlement. And it was very much in my mind that we had had peacekeeping troops keeping combatants apart in Cyprus for 29 years and I did not think the concept of what would clearly have to be a NATO force, there would be no other show in town remotely big enough to do it, undertaking that role was ever practical. Not only was it never practical, we think, militarily, it was never practical because no country was prepared to put troops in in that scale and on those numbers.

    As far as the crimes of people in Bosnia are concerned, I think the war crimes tribunal point has been mentioned on many occasions in the past. I don’t see any need for me to reiterate it today.

    As far as peacekeeping elsewhere is concerned, a number of the countries who contribute to Bosnia have peacekeeping troops in a large number of countries around the world, certainly that is true of the United Kingdom and it is certainly true of our hosts here in Canada who have a record in terms of peacekeeping in blue helmets that. I think is probably unmatched by anyone else.

    QUESTION (Jonathan Fried, ISN TV Canada):

    Prime Minister Chretien has been expressing concern that any small contribution by .Canada to the Rapid Reaction Force might not be a meaningful one. Would you agree?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    You ask the question at an appropriate time because I have just been saying quite gratuitously what a remarkable international record Canada has had in terms of peacekeeping. I cannot traipse on whether the Canadian Cabinet feel it right to make a further contribution to the Rapid Reaction Force, but from what I have seen of Canadian troops in the past, they have always made a positive contribution but that is not to be taken as an indication that I am especially prodding for a further contribution for Canada. Their contribution to Bosnia has been a very honourable one and to many other parts of the world as well they have done their share and more on many occasions.

    QUESTION:

    Would you welcome even a small contribution?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We would welcome contributions from anywhere where they are professional soldiers, as they are from Canada. But I think one mustn’t ask too much of any individual nation state. Canada must make that decision, if Canada decides to send a small number I personally will be very pleased, I think they will be able to make the warm contribution that Canadian soldiers always do. If they decide against it, I don’t think that is a cause for criticism of Canada with its record in Bosnia now and in many other places both at the moment and in the past.

    QUESTION (Bill Keegan):

    The Group of 7 have been involved for some years now with the reform process in Russia, was there any indication in the discussions with President Yeltsin that the precipitous decline in output there had reached bottom and was there any kind of discussion of further financial help or rescheduling of debt?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    There were no further requests for financial help. As to whether the Russian economy has bottomed out, we did discuss the Russian economy and President Yeltsin said over dinner last night that he expected the economy to grow, very modestly perhaps, around 1 percent this year. The implication was that there was bottoming out. There is also no doubt I think in the Russian economy that many of the reforms have begun to take root. Anyone who went to Russia 15 years or 20 years ago and was familiar with Moscow then, and who was to go back to Moscow today, would see a very remarkable difference. Of course from the point of view of the reformers it is sometimes a good deal slower than they would wish, they would like more dramatic improvement. But that a free enterprise democratic system has put down fairly healthy roots in Russia, I am absolutely confident. It will be a long period, this reform process. Anyone who thinks they are going to wake up this time next year or the year after and find that reform has been wholly completed in Russia I suggest should emulate Rip Van Winkle and sleep a little longer because that certainly will not be the case. But that they are making progress is certain, difficult and painful. I doubt many people would have imagined the progress on public expenditure that Chernomyrdin has made, it has been a good deal better than many imagined. Inflation was at outrageous levels, it is still very very high, but it has come down quite remarkably. So I think there is progress and if President Yeltsin’s assessment that there may be growth in the Russian economy this year is right, then I think that is an extremely good sign.

    QUESTION (CNBC TV):

    To what degree was there tension or frustration at the table over the US not being able to commit troops to Bosnia and President Clinton not being able to fully guarantee US payment for its share for the troops in Bosnia; and also about the French nuclear testing, to what degree was there tension or frustration at the table?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t believe there was tension or frustration around the table. The French nuclear testing matter was not mentioned at all. And on the earlier point, I think the position was well understood and has been well understood for some time. As far as the payment is concerned, I think there was an acknowledgement that the President would wish to pay assessed contributions, indeed he has said so repeatedly over the last few days and I think practising politicians sitting around the table sometimes acknowledge that there are frustrations that inhibit them from doing what they would most wish to do. So I don’t think there was a special frustration. We look forward to the President finding a way through it.

    QUESTION (Adam Boulton, Sky):

    Throughout this summit you have made it clear that in your view you have a clear policy agenda which you don’t intend to be deflected from by the Conservative Party, can I therefore ask you why you don’t actually go ahead now and seek an early leadership election so that you can clear the air and then carry on?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    You have been reading your competitors’ newspapers, Adam. I have certainly said that I have set out a clear agenda, and when you say the Conservative Party you might perhaps say some members of the Conservative Party rather than speak in a generality. We have a system for electing the leader of the Conservative Party, but that system is in the hands of the Conservative Party, not in the hands of the leader of the Conservative Party. We have a system, it is there, if people choose to use that system, that is a matter for them and not me. Every member of the party accepts that that is the right way to proceed and I see no signs of anyone wishing to change that.

    QUESTION:

    You have spent the week here discussing the future of world institutions, there are stories at home that you are going to spend this weekend contemplating your own future as Party leader and Prime Minister. Is there any question of your contemplating stepping down?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    If you promise not to tell anyone, in the intimacy of this meeting I will tell you that I intend to spend my weekend in very deep contemplation over whether the United Kingdom will manage to win their rugby match in South Africa tomorrow. When I say the United Kingdom winning, we have had four teams there, we have one left – England – and it has a very tough battle against our friends from New Zealand and I very much look forward to seeing that game and I very much hope that the games lives up to the remarkable game against Australia last week. But if you wish to know what is on my mind at this moment, and over this weekend, it will be England’s performance and England’s fate against New Zealand.

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s press conference in Halifax, held on Saturday 17th June 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me, before I talk about the conference, express my thanks to the Prime Minister for the organisation of the conference, but perhaps even more than that, to the people of Halifax who have been extraordinarily warm in their reception right the way through this G7. I have attended quite a number of G7s now, I cannot recall one where people were so friendly. Perhaps in a smaller town than we sometimes visit, the sight of limousines clocking up the road for ordinary people going around their work is not quite so frustrating, but whatever the reason, the reception here has been extraordinarily warm. I felt that and I think all my colleagues did as well. And I would like to express my thanks to the people of Halifax for that.

    In the summit over the last day or so, we have had the opportunity of looking at some long term problems and also addressing some of the problems that lie immediately ahead of us. A number of decisions have been taken, you will have seen the communiques no doubt but I will elaborate them for you briefly.

    We agreed last year that we would have a look, on this occasion, at the international institutions and come forward with some proposals for their reform. We cannot impose that reform of course, we can make suggestions, particularly as far as the United Nations and the IFIs are concerned, and we have honoured that commitment. I hope we will now be able to take those suggestions forward.

    In particular we have agreed 12 proposals to strengthen the effectiveness of the international financial institutions. I have no intention of running through all of them but I think the determination to improve IMF surveillance on the back of the difficulties that one saw in Mexico recently is self-evidently of importance and so is handling financial crises generally.

    We have also put forward a number of proposals for strengthening the United Nations and they focus essentially on eliminating duplication, eliminating waste, increasing efficiency, as well as reviewing the method of contributions to the United Nations to put its finances on a sounder basis for the 1990s and the turn of the century.

    We will now carry this forward with our personal representatives and try and persuade the rest of the United Nations membership of the merits of our approach. I stress that because this is emphatically not something that the G7 either could, or should, seek to impose upon the United Nations and we will be in the business of persuading people that it is right to proceed with these reforms.

    We have also looked, yet again, at the nature of the G7 itself. Over the last few years we have managed to cut down on much of the pomp and ceremony that has attended these meetings. A great deal of the fat was taken away at Naples last year and Prime Minister Chretien has taken that process of reform towards making it a better structured working meeting a good deal further this year. I congratulate him on that and I look forward to Jacques Chirac taking it even further next year. We may not get there immediately, but I think the goal is to move much more towards the sort of original intent of these summits, a relatively small gathering in which matters can be discussed both formally and informally and without the inevitable necessity for the communiques that I know so many people have been so interested in in the last couple of days.

    We have also given quite a strong push to liberalising world trade. The Uruguay Round was very welcome, it carried matters a good deal forward but it by no means left us with a liberal world trading system. There is a great deal more to be done, a great deal of unfinished business as well as new areas to be tackled. Amongst the new areas of course, non-tariff barriers of various kinds, investment, government procurement and a range of related matters.

    I think that is important not just because I support free trade, but if one is concerned about the position of many of the less well off, some of the downright poor nations of the world, the greater the extent that the world’s markets are open to their products, the greater I think they will begin to have a capacity to deal with some of the appalling problems that many of them face.

    Allied to that, we have also taken some further steps to look at how we might relieve the debt of the very poorest countries, a matter that the United Kingdom has been leading really for the last 8 or 9 years as a matter of extreme importance.

    I hope as a result of the discussions we have had that we will soon be in the position where the IMF will be prepared to pledge some of its gold, and eventually perhaps even gold sales, to assist some of the very poorest countries.

    We also agreed that we would repeat the Detroit Job Summit, not in Detroit but in France at some date yet to be specified but probably in the first half of next year. The strategy and purpose of that is as it was before. There was a welcome reaffirmation again that the way to create jobs was by having a more flexible labour market, up-grading skills, deregulation. And no-one was talking of large artificial short-term expenditure packages that put a burden on the budget, create jobs in the short term and probably lead to inflation and more difficulties in the medium and longer term.

    Much of the agenda in the early part of this conference, unsurprising to some of us that it turned out this way, was that much of the agenda was seized by events in Bosnia. I don’t think there is any doubt that events there have taken a turn for the worst over the last few days. There has also been some confusion publicly over the role and purpose of the Rapid Reaction Force. Let me say firstly that I am delighted that the Rapid Reaction Force got unanimous support from our partners here in Halifax, unanimous and very warm support from all our partners in Halifax.

    Let me make a couple of things clear again about the Rapid Reaction Force. The purpose of it is essentially twofold: firstly to enable the protection forces to carry out their existing mandate more effectively; and secondly to improve the protection forces’ ability to protect themselves whenever and wherever that may be necessary. The force will be part of the United Nations protection forces and it will be under United Nations command, and that means the French General, General Janvier, and Rupert Smith, the British General, commanding there.

    On Friday morning, early in the morning, the Security Council passed resolution 998 which gave the formal authority that was necessary to the despatch of the Rapid Reaction Force to Bosnia. Because of the difficulties that the American President has with the Republican leadership in Congress, the details of the question of paying for the force, reluctantly it has been necessary to put that to one side for the time being. It will need to be sorted out quickly, and I believe it will be, and our American friends are well aware of this. When I saw President Clinton yesterday he acknowledged the problems that he faces with Congress at present, but he reiterated the pledge that he had made at dinner on Thursday night that the United States would take its share of the cost. That is also the view of all the other Heads of Government gathered here, that their countries also would take their share of the cost.

    That is by no means an exhaustive account of the issues we have tackled, we made a considerable amount of progress on the environment, in looking at international crime and terrorism. It was extremely helpful to have Boris Yeltsin arrive last evening for discussions over dinner and more discussions this morning, and I think that underlines yet again the importance of the Russian political contribution which I hope and expect will be further developed in the G7 next year. We had a good discussion of Chechnya and of what can be done to promote a peaceful solution there.

    We also agreed, following President Yeltsin’s arrival, that we would have a summit in Moscow, on a date yet to be determined but in the first half of next year, to discuss various aspects of nuclear safety. There is a big agenda there. It is I think entirely appropriate for the members of the G8 to get together, possibly with others as well, still to be determined, in order to discuss what really is a very wide agenda. And we will be putting some experts together to look in detail at the matters we might productively discuss in Moscow next year.

    And President Yeltsin also took the opportunity to advise us of the up-to-date position in the south of Russia with the difficulties they face at the moment with the hostages. This is a frightful tragedy already and potentially, unless we are fortunate, the most serious terrorist incident that anybody will be able to remember. So there was a great deal of sympathy for the hostages there and for the dreadful situation and the predicament that President Yeltsin found himself in.

    I will not expand on these points any further at the moment but I will endeavour to take questions. If we could deal with questions for some time on the conference I think that would be helpful, there may be one or two others, we will take those later, but let us deal with matters to do with the conference.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (Mark Pinder, AFX News):

    Prime Minister, given your push to liberalise world trade, how would you deal with criticism that this multilateral summit has been mostly silent on the US unilateral threat of sanctions against Japan?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We are in favour of multilateralism rather than bilateralism, and that is known both to the United States and it is known to Japan. But at the moment both Japan and the United States are inhibited in discussing that matter with others because they are reaching towards their own conclusion to this, I think everybody accepted that and honoured the fact that that was the case. But the point was made that we believe in multilateral solutions to world trading problems and not bilateral solutions, and I think that was acknowledged and understood.

    QUESTION (David Boyle, New Economics Magazine):

    President Chirac described currency speculation yesterday as the Aids of the world economy, if that is the way he feels why does the summit fail to discuss the … levy at all and why does it simply call for the encouragement of the removal of capital market restrictions further?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    President Chirac expressed a view, he also agreed to the summit communique, we discussed all that. I think many people have a distaste for currency speculation. But of course we have to look at what in reality it is practical to do. If you were to take the sum total of all the foreign exchange reserved of all the G7 nations gathered around the table, you would find they would be but a portion of the movement over the New York exchanges on a daily basis. So clearly artificial means to curb currency speculation, I think from time to time at the fringes there are certain things one can do, I won’t say there is nothing that can be done, but I think the work that can be done in that fashion is very much on the margins of events. What really we were concentrating on rather more than that was the determination to try and remove the causes that generated currency instability, and that of course is a theme that I think the G7 have been following for some considerable time.

    QUESTION (Robert Chope, FT):

    Have you been disappointed by the reaction to the gold sales proposal which now appears to have been pushed further back and we are left with pledging as an alternative, do you think that is a practical alternative that would be as effective?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think it will be effective, yes. Not everyone is undilutedly keen even to mention the wicked word gold in this context, but since the IMF has no other resources, it is gold we are talking about. From my point of view it doesn’t really matter whether it is pledged in order to raise resources or whether it is sold. The original proposition, one of the propositions for selling the gold, was simply to raise the capital, to maintain the capital of course but to use the interest on the capital. I think that can be done the same way in terms of pledging. What matters is the end product for the countries who will receive assistance and I am confident as a result of the discussions we have had that we will make progress on that.

    QUESTION (Nicholas Witchell, BBC):

    There is no reference to Chechnya in the Chairman’s statement, is that out of deference to Mr Yeltsin’s presence here? And on Bosnia, has Mr Yeltsin produced some new ideas on settling the conflict there?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think there are any new ideas on settling the conflict there. Whenever necessary, President Yeltsin has used his influence with Belgrade and encouraged Belgrade to use their influence with Parle. That has been the case in the past and he reiterated this morning that he would do that whenever it was necessary. And of course there has been a very constructive part played in the Contact Group by Andrei Kozyrev and very close relationships with the Russians. Indeed if you go back just a few years, it would have been almost inconceivable to imagine the degree of political cooperation that has taken place between the Western nations and Russia over Bosnia, and that will continue. But neither President Yeltsin, nor frankly, Nicholas, anyone else, has a simple and ready made off the shelf solution to the nightmare of Bosnia at present.

    Chechnya was not included, you are quite right, I am sure people will be asked questions about that, it was not included. It was not a subject of great discussion. We asked what the present situation was. Most people had their mind pitched more immediately upon the problems of the hostages and I think that is probably the principal reason why there was no specific mention. Though I think you will find that the Chairman of the meeting will probably mention it, will no doubt by now have done so, in his press conference.

    QUESTION (Harold Freedman, IHT):

    On Chechnya we have heard that at dinner last night a number of G7 leaders, including yourself, delivered a fairly stern lecture to Mr Yeltsin saying that if he had done more talking and less military action then he would not find himself in the predicament he is in right now with the hostages. Could you comment on that, is that true? Secondly, from your talks with US and Japanese counterparts are you optimistic or pessimistic about a resolution of the US/Japanese car dispute?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t know whether I would categorise it as a stern lecture. There was some discussion of the matter, that is certainly true, but stern lecture is not really in the nature of these rather intimate round table discussions and neither would it really be very productive. I think from time to time people seem inclined to read a stern lecture to my country, I don’t think I would respond very happily to that on these occasions and I don’t think it would be a very productive way for people to behave. And far be it for me to put thoughts in President Yeltsin’s mind, but I think he would probably react the same way. So discussion, yes; stern lecture, I don’t think I would have called it a stern lecture.

    QUESTION:

    [Inaudible].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think there was a general discussion, I don’t want to go into the details of precisely who said what at the meeting.

    On your second question, I very much hope they are going to be able to settle the problems with US/Japan, they certainly believe they are making progress but that was not a substantive matter for discussion at the dinner last night, there was a passing reference to it. There was discussion during the day yesterday on the subject of US/Japan, but reverting to the point I made earlier and the point that we believe these things should be settled on a multilateral rather than a bilateral basis, the feeling was that progress was being made, that special circumstances did apply, we were reliably informed, but our view was that multilateralism should generally prevail.

    QUESTION (George Jones, Daily Telegraph):

    If I could just pick up on your concern and the concern the Foreign Secretary has expressed about Bosnia and the upsurge in fighting around Sarajevo. There is a report in the Financial Times today that if there has to be a sort of enforced withdrawal of the peacekeeping forces there it would take another 20,000 British troops there to ensure that that happened. Is that a realistic estimate of your contingency plans?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am not going to go into the contingency plans except to say we have contingency plans for every foreseeable circumstance, at least every foreseeable circumstance that we have envisaged. But I think when one comes to that numbers game you can almost pay your own money and take your own choice, it depends what set of difficulties you stand up against the likely withdrawal. Whatever you put into the assessment on one side would lead to a difference in numbers on the other side, but I am not going to confirm that figure.

    QUESTION (David Smith, Channel 4 News):

    Nuclear and the proposed summit in Moscow, was there any discussion this morning with President Yeltsin on the nuclear programme with Iran and any evidence that he is prepared to listen more than when President Clinton raised it with him recently in Moscow?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I should emphasise that we are talking of civil nuclear, in case anybody misunderstands that, we are talking about civil nuclear safety in terms of the conference next year. There was not substantive discussion about Iran, there was reference to it, most certainly, but it was really simply in the context of the matters that we might examine at the conference next year rather than a structured discussion on the particular Russian/Iranian situation.

    FOREIGN SECRETARY:

    Can I add a point, that the Chairman’s statement does call on all states not to collaborate with Iran in any way which could help them acquire a nuclear weapons capability, and that is something of course the Russians agreed.

    QUESTION (New Economics Magazine):

    Considering that the appeasement of genocide in Bosnia is now threatening the whole post-European order, is it not strange that the statement this morning mentions a very strong determination of the G7 to enforce UN resolutions regarding Iraq and Libya but does not mention those regarding Bosnia, and also it mentions a very strong determination to make those accountable who were responsible for genocide in Rwanda and Burundi and mentions the international tribunal, but does not express a similar determination regarding those responsible in former Yugoslavia?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t recognise the introduction to your statement as having a great deal of connection with reality as I understand it. I don’t recognise the point about appeasement in Bosnia. In terms before the United Nations protection forces went in, in the year before they went in, there was something in excess, I take the figures from memory so they may be mildly out but not much I think, something over 100,000 deaths in central Bosnia. In the year after the United Nations protection forces were there there were less than 5,000, I think less than 3,000. If by appeasement you mean the Western nations should themselves have declared war on one or both sides in Bosnia and gone in in order to keep a peace in that fashion, then I have to say to you that is not what has traditionally happened in terms of United Nations peacekeeping and neither, in the particular circumstances of Bosnia, would it be a practical proposition.

    Almost the first thing I did when the Bosnian crisis broke was to actually seek military advice from our own senior military advisers in London as to how many troops would be necessary in order to prevent the fighting that was then taking place in Bosnia. I know other Heads of Government took the same sort of judgment and sought the same sort of advice. And the answer, in order to keep the parties apart, was something in the region of 400,000 NATO troops. And not only would you need to put 400,000 NATO troops in in order to keep the combatants apart, you would need to keep them there to ensure that the combatants remained apart and when at some stage in the future you left them the combatants may well start again, such is the nature of the ancient feuds there, unless there is a political settlement. And it was very much in my mind that we had had peacekeeping troops keeping combatants apart in Cyprus for 29 years and I did not think the concept of what would clearly have to be a NATO force, there would be no other show in town remotely big enough to do it, undertaking that role was ever practical. Not only was it never practical, we think, militarily, it was never practical because no country was prepared to put troops in in that scale and on those numbers.

    As far as the crimes of people in Bosnia are concerned, I think the war crimes tribunal point has been mentioned on many occasions in the past. I don’t see any need for me to reiterate it today.

    As far as peacekeeping elsewhere is concerned, a number of the countries who contribute to Bosnia have peacekeeping troops in a large number of countries around the world, certainly that is true of the United Kingdom and it is certainly true of our hosts here in Canada who have a record in terms of peacekeeping in blue helmets that. I think is probably unmatched by anyone else.

    QUESTION (Jonathan Fried, ISN TV Canada):

    Prime Minister Chretien has been expressing concern that any small contribution by .Canada to the Rapid Reaction Force might not be a meaningful one. Would you agree?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    You ask the question at an appropriate time because I have just been saying quite gratuitously what a remarkable international record Canada has had in terms of peacekeeping. I cannot traipse on whether the Canadian Cabinet feel it right to make a further contribution to the Rapid Reaction Force, but from what I have seen of Canadian troops in the past, they have always made a positive contribution but that is not to be taken as an indication that I am especially prodding for a further contribution for Canada. Their contribution to Bosnia has been a very honourable one and to many other parts of the world as well they have done their share and more on many occasions.

    QUESTION:

    Would you welcome even a small contribution?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We would welcome contributions from anywhere where they are professional soldiers, as they are from Canada. But I think one mustn’t ask too much of any individual nation state. Canada must make that decision, if Canada decides to send a small number I personally will be very pleased, I think they will be able to make the warm contribution that Canadian soldiers always do. If they decide against it, I don’t think that is a cause for criticism of Canada with its record in Bosnia now and in many other places both at the moment and in the past.

    QUESTION (Bill Keegan):

    The Group of 7 have been involved for some years now with the reform process in Russia, was there any indication in the discussions with President Yeltsin that the precipitous decline in output there had reached bottom and was there any kind of discussion of further financial help or rescheduling of debt?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    There were no further requests for financial help. As to whether the Russian economy has bottomed out, we did discuss the Russian economy and President Yeltsin said over dinner last night that he expected the economy to grow, very modestly perhaps, around 1 percent this year. The implication was that there was bottoming out. There is also no doubt I think in the Russian economy that many of the reforms have begun to take root. Anyone who went to Russia 15 years or 20 years ago and was familiar with Moscow then, and who was to go back to Moscow today, would see a very remarkable difference. Of course from the point of view of the reformers it is sometimes a good deal slower than they would wish, they would like more dramatic improvement. But that a free enterprise democratic system has put down fairly healthy roots in Russia, I am absolutely confident. It will be a long period, this reform process. Anyone who thinks they are going to wake up this time next year or the year after and find that reform has been wholly completed in Russia I suggest should emulate Rip Van Winkle and sleep a little longer because that certainly will not be the case. But that they are making progress is certain, difficult and painful. I doubt many people would have imagined the progress on public expenditure that Chernomyrdin has made, it has been a good deal better than many imagined. Inflation was at outrageous levels, it is still very very high, but it has come down quite remarkably. So I think there is progress and if President Yeltsin’s assessment that there may be growth in the Russian economy this year is right, then I think that is an extremely good sign.

    QUESTION (CNBC TV):

    To what degree was there tension or frustration at the table over the US not being able to commit troops to Bosnia and President Clinton not being able to fully guarantee US payment for its share for the troops in Bosnia; and also about the French nuclear testing, to what degree was there tension or frustration at the table?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t believe there was tension or frustration around the table. The French nuclear testing matter was not mentioned at all. And on the earlier point, I think the position was well understood and has been well understood for some time. As far as the payment is concerned, I think there was an acknowledgement that the President would wish to pay assessed contributions, indeed he has said so repeatedly over the last few days and I think practising politicians sitting around the table sometimes acknowledge that there are frustrations that inhibit them from doing what they would most wish to do. So I don’t think there was a special frustration. We look forward to the President finding a way through it.

    QUESTION (Adam Boulton, Sky):

    Throughout this summit you have made it clear that in your view you have a clear policy agenda which you don’t intend to be deflected from by the Conservative Party, can I therefore ask you why you don’t actually go ahead now and seek an early leadership election so that you can clear the air and then carry on?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    You have been reading your competitors’ newspapers, Adam. I have certainly said that I have set out a clear agenda, and when you say the Conservative Party you might perhaps say some members of the Conservative Party rather than speak in a generality. We have a system for electing the leader of the Conservative Party, but that system is in the hands of the Conservative Party, not in the hands of the leader of the Conservative Party. We have a system, it is there, if people choose to use that system, that is a matter for them and not me. Every member of the party accepts that that is the right way to proceed and I see no signs of anyone wishing to change that.

    QUESTION:

    You have spent the week here discussing the future of world institutions, there are stories at home that you are going to spend this weekend contemplating your own future as Party leader and Prime Minister. Is there any question of your contemplating stepping down?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    If you promise not to tell anyone, in the intimacy of this meeting I will tell you that I intend to spend my weekend in very deep contemplation over whether the United Kingdom will manage to win their rugby match in South Africa tomorrow. When I say the United Kingdom winning, we have had four teams there, we have one left – England – and it has a very tough battle against our friends from New Zealand and I very much look forward to seeing that game and I very much hope that the games lives up to the remarkable game against Australia last week. But if you wish to know what is on my mind at this moment, and over this weekend, it will be England’s performance and England’s fate against New Zealand.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with Chancellor Kohl in Bonn – 26 May 1995

    Below is the transcript of Mr Major’s joint press conference in Bonn with the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, and the German and British Foreign Ministers, on Friday 26th May 1995.

    CHANCELLOR KOHL:

    Prime Minister, Ministers, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. First of all I would like to apologise for the fact of keeping you waiting. You know that I am not in the habit to do so normally but we had our normal and regular consultations here today and it was all of a sudden today that the events in former Yugoslavia took a fairly dramatic turn, so at this point I would only like to make very briefly a few introductory comments on what loomed on the agenda of our bilateral consultations and then the Foreign Ministers will give a report on what happened today.

    The delay took place because the Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, whom we both wanted to call, and we did so, was not in Moscow but in Minsk and it took a little while to establish a telephone link with Minsk and unfortunately we had to keep you waiting. I would like to ask for your understanding.

    On the 25th Anglo-German consultations, they take place at a very important time in international politics. I would like to use the opportunity here, John, to thank you most warmly for the friendship that you have shown us and the support that you have shown us throughout these times that are so important in the history of our nation and where such painful memories come back into one’s memories. I would like to thank you for what you did on 8 May and I would like to thank you for the very good speech that you gave in Berlin, a speech that was characterised by friendship. On the issues that we discussed, well first of all we agreed on a private visit of John Major and his wife for the autumn of this year and I will be very happy to receive him as my personal guest at my home.

    We talked about the G7, about the preparations leading up to the G7 meeting in Halifax, to the EU meeting in Cannes, about all of the issues that we are going to discuss there, and we were at one in our desire before these important conferences, that is both for Halifax and for Cannes, to come to the closest possible consultation and cooperation between our two governments. And there are a number of priorities that we set for ourselves. First of all drawing the central and Eastern European countries closer to the European Union, legal harmonisation, looking here at the White Book of the Commission to that effect. Both governments have always been at one that drawing the young fledgling democracies of central and Eastern Europe closer to the European Union is one of the pre-conditions for being able to maintain peace in Europe.

    We talked about contacts and the relationship to the countries of the Mediterranean area; we talked about internal and legal policy about Europol and other related subjects; and obviously, and here too we closely cooperate, we talked about unemployment and the employment situation in general, and that incidentally was also a very important issue that loomed large on the agenda of President Chirac and myself last week.

    We also would wish that the Commission will submit the report in such a way to the Cannes meeting that we may be able to discuss the principle of subsidiarity. On the request of both of our governments, a German and a British group of entrepreneurs has brought in a number of proposals on deregulation and the Prime Minister and myself will, in a joint letter to the President of the Commission, submit this proposal for further examination,

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Helmut, thank you very much. Let me just add a few words to what the Chancellor has had to say. We have had a very friendly, very wide-ranging, very candid, very practical and very constructive meeting, and as always it has been immensely enjoyable.

    As the Chancellor said, we spent some time discussing the prospects of a G7 meeting in Halifax, we have had a very close look at some of the ideas that are around for reform of the international financial institutions and the United Nations. We looked particularly at the agenda for the Cannes European Council on deregulation, as the Chancellor said. We have been working together. There has been an Anglo-German business group working together, they have reached some conclusions and we have jointly written to all our fellow Heads of Government in the European Union, and the President of the Commission, sending them a copy of that report with our full support.

    We also discussed transatlantic relations, trade relations and other relations. We are certainly keen on building those up, keen on looking at the prospects for building on the GATT agreement and the advent of the World Trade Organisation, and this is something else that we will continue to return to time and time again in the future. I will not run through all the details of the points the Chancellor mentioned. He set out I think accurately for both of us much of the substance of our discussion.

    The Foreign Ministers have spent this morning talking about Bosnia and the Chancellor and I have spent some time on that as well. Let me just say a word or two about that and what has been happening in the last couple of hours. Clearly the situation is very serious there and there is no doubt that we need to look very carefully at what is happening there at the moment and what will need to happen in the immediate future. I had the opportunity about an hour ago of speaking on the telephone to General Rupert Smith in Sarajevo and he reported on the present situation there, I think, as you know, a substantial number of people have been killed and wounded in the attacks, the precise numbers, some have been reported, but the precise numbers in truth are not yet known and may not be known for a little while yet.

    What is perfectly clear is that what has happened over the last couple of days is immensely serious. The remedy for this overwhelmingly lies with the Serbs. They need to observe the ultimatum that has been set and they need to return their weapons to the collection point.

    A second point I think that needs making very forcibly. Whilst it is necessary for the Serbs to do that, it is also necessary to ask the Bosnian government to restrain themselves and not to add to any of the difficulties that at present are being faced by the United Nations protection forces.

    And the third point I would make I believe is equally very important. I hope there are no more attacks against United Nations personnel, either direct attacks against them or attacks with the intention of taking hostages, at all. I believe that would not be a way for them to proceed. Putting pressure on the nations who have troops there in the protection forces is not the right way for us to proceed at the moment and I hope that is fully understood by the Bosnian Serbs.

    Clearly we have some difficult decisions to face in the near future. The Chancellor and I have sent a message to President Yeltsin asking him to use his influence with the Bosnian Serbs, and after sending the message we managed to find him on the telephone at Minsk, and also had the opportunity of speaking to him and delivering precisely the same message, and I am very hopeful on the basis of that that he will use his influence to try and calm matters down in and around Sarajevo.

    I think for the moment I will leave events at that, return it to the Chancellor. He may want the Foreign Ministers to say a word about their morning discussions and then perhaps we could take any questions you may have.

    CHANCELLOR KOHL:

    Allow me to add, if I may, that we also established contact with the French Prime Minister. He is familiar with our message and the text of our message that we sent to Boris Yeltsin, but he is on the road somewhere in France and he is just now coming back to Paris. Klaus Kinkel will immediately try after this press conference to establish contact with him and inform him and I would like to remind all of us of the fact that yesterday night I had a long telephone conversation with President Clinton although all those things had not yet reached that dramatic peak that they have today.

    1. KINKEL:

    As the Prime Minister and the Chancellor said, the crucial issue of the talks between the Chancellor and Prime Minister Major and between my British colleague, Douglas Hurd, and myself was certainly the situation in Bosnia, a situation that has reached a new, dramatic peak particularly in the areas in and around Sarajevo and Tusla. You know that the Serbs massively attacked Sarajevo particularly this morning and there was a very large number of casualties and wounded. We don’t as yet have any substantive figures. Another air strike took place in the meantime and the Chancellor, the Prime Minister and we Foreign Ministers were at one that everything has to be done in order to reach a de-escalation of the situation.

    I had talks in Washington with Vice-President Gore, the Security Advisor Legge and also the Secretary of State, Mr. Christopher and this dramatic peak which the situation had reached loomed large on our agenda. We are in very close contact with the Secretary-General of NATO; before our talks, we had a number of telephone conversations with him and tried to get information on the most recent state of affairs.

    The Prime Minister has already pointed out and the Chancellor also mentioned that a message was sent to President Yeltsin and we finally made telephone contact. This was a message directed to President Yeltsin where we appealed to him to exert his influence on Milosovic to prevent him from supporting the Bosnian Serbs; the message further contained an appeal to Milosovic where we asked him to please do everything to see to it that the border between Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs remains closed. This message called for three very clear-cut objectives: first of all, de-escalation; secondly, the bombarding of the protected areas will have to stop immediately; and thirdly, heavy weapons have to remain in the collection points because there are indications that there too there may be a certain development that would be most unwelcome and most unpleasant and obviously the message said that the taking of hostages will not be in any way successful and that this must be stopped immediately.

    As the Chancellor said, we are in contact with Prime Minister Juppe, and with the Americans and tonight we are going to call them once again. Further steps will be the following:

    The Contact Group foreign ministers will meet Tuesday and Wednesday in Nortvige [phoentic] in Holland and then we will think once again about possible further steps and obviously we will try to make contact with Foreign Minister Kozyrev.

    I do not want to go into details of the military operation. We have been informed by Secretary-General Claus and by General Rupert Smith of the present state of affairs but this obviously is a matter for the military to assess the real situation on the ground and whether further measures will be taken.

    It is undoubtedly a very grave and very serious situation that we want to and will have to try to solve by resorting to political means. Any military solution of the Bosnian conflict, of the situation in former Yugoslavia, cannot and must not be the right way.

    FOREIGN SECRETARY DOUGLAS HURD:

    I do not need to add very much. As Klaus Kinkel has just said, it is clear that the decisions hour by hour on the ground and in the air rest with the NATO and United Nations commanders and as has been said, we have been in very close touch with them hour by hour this morning. Warren Christopher telephoned me first thing this morning in order to express his support for what the UN and NATO had done so far and indicated that it would be necessary, he thought, to do more. That is the view of everybody here and the Prime Minister made clear in Parliament yesterday that we fully support what has been done and that is also the German view so that is support for those who are responsible for these very difficult and dangerous decisions hour by hour on the ground but we have to support them in another way which is to try and bring the maximum pressure on all those concerned to prevent what is happening now which is bad enough – enough people are being killed – from escalating into an even greater war with more suffering, more casualties and the effect on the future of the United Nations effort and that is why the Federal Chancellor and the Prime Minister have sent a message to President Yeltsin, that is why they have talked to him, that is why we are in very close touch with the French and of course with the Americans. The Bosnian Serbs would have been wise to heed the terms of the ultimatum which they received; they would be wise to heed it now.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION:

    Chancellor, can you tell us how President Yeltsin reacted to the message that he received from you?

    CHANCELLOR KOHL:

    He clearly gave us to understand – and obviously in a way I am adding my interpretation of it and using my own words now – that he considered the situation to be extremely dangerous and he promised to act on the basis of our message in any direction desired in that message. We did not talk about details obviously but both of us talked to him on the telephone and we both impressed on him how serious we thought the situation is. It is obviously a fairly unusual way of proceeding the sort of action which we immediately resorted to which we thought however was a very necessary reaction in view of the circumstances.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, you spoke about some difficult decisions to face in the near future. What are those decisions and do they include a decision on whether or not to withdraw?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Over the days ahead, the immediate difficult decisions I had in mind were the difficult decisions to be taken by the commanders on the ground in response to whatever action may be taken against Sarajevo, against the ammunition dumps or against any other target so those were the immediate decisions I had in mind. They are decisions that will not be easy for the commanders. Clearly, if the situation deteriorates, one would have to take a strategic look but let me make clear again what I have said in the past. I think there are two points that are relevant:

    Firstly, for as long as it is possible, for as long as the United Nations protection forces can credibly carry out their humanitarian mandate and save lives, it would be my wish for the protection forces to stay there providing they can do so at acceptable risk to themselves.

    The second point is equally important. If they cannot carry out their mandate at acceptable risk, if the fighting escalates to a level when it is quite impossible, then clearly circumstances could arise when it would not be possible for the United Nations protection forces to remain.

    I emphasise that is not my wish. I believe they have done a superb job there, I very much hope they will continue to stay there but I think everyone on the ground needs to be aware that they are there with a particular mandate, with a humanitarian responsibility and they are not equipped to be in the middle of a full-scale war.

    QUESTION:

    There are reports that President Yeltsin has condemned the latest UN air strike. Can you confirm that, please?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I haven’t seen such reports.

    QUESTION:

    He didn’t express any view to you?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We were primarily discussing what can be done to de-escalate the problem there and President Yeltsin undertook, as the Chancellor said a moment ago, to use his best offices.

    QUESTION:

    Chancellor or Prime Minister, has any idea been put forward to reposition forces or regroup forces and also to deploy Western forces in order to protect the United Nations troops on the ground there?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    That would be a matter for the commanders on the ground to advise about, indeed it would be a matter for them to take decisions about. In terms of regrouping and moving the forces, the commander has the responsibility and the authority to do that in the interests of his own troops and his own mission. Whether he is doing that at the moment, I don’t yet knew. I don’t believe he has yet done so. If he believes it necessary, then he would have the authority to do so.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with President Yeltsin – 25 September 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint press conference with President Yeltsin, held at Brize Norton on Sunday 25th September 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me start first and then I will invite President Yeltsin to say a few words but we are running a little late; I am afraid we will be as speedy as we possibly can be.

    We have had this weekend a meeting of an entirely different kind; it is, to be frank, one of a kind that hasn’t happened before and I suppose wouldn’t have been possible before for many years. I think Boris Yeltsin put his finger on it yesterday when he said that the Queen’s state visit to Russia would be an historic event without precedent. That is entirely true, it would have been unthinkable some years ago and so in its own way would the weekend that we have just spent together at Chequers.

    We haven’t produced a communique as I indicated yesterday when we spoke. We have not talked across a table from prepared positions and prepared notes but we have covered a very great deal of ground sitting together, over walks and over meals. We have looked at the future shape of Europe both in the medium term and the long term. The old divisions have gone for good but Europe is still in In May next year, we will celebrate half a century of peace in Europe. I have invited the Russian Government to take part in the commemorative events we are holding in Britain and President Yeltsin has invited the British Government to the important commemorations that he will be organising a few days later in Russia. We have agreed that both governments will be represented at a very high level on each occasion and we will agree and set out the details at a later time.

    We spent some time discussing Bosnia at length, beginning on our walk yesterday afternoon and continuing when the Foreign Ministers joined us later today. We are again entering a very difficult period over Bosnia; it was very fortunate that President Yeltsin and I, Douglas Hurd and Andre Kozyrev have had the opportunity of discussing it this weekend and I say that because it is particularly important for Europe, Russia and the United States to stay closely together at this time. We wish to preserve the gains that have been made over the past few months and the achievements of the United Nations Protection Forces; the Contact Group can play a very important part in this; President Milosevic should be encouraged to ensure that Bosnian Serbs don’t receive support from the former Yugoslavia; and everything possible should he done to keep the diplomatic process moving forward to induce the parties to come to a peaceful settlement.

    We spoke about arms control questions, including implementation of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe where there are still some very complicated issues to be resolved and about weapons proliferation. Nuclear non-proliferation is vitally important to both of us and we shall continue to give it a very high priority in our joint efforts.

    The President briefed me on Russia’s relations with the neighbouring countries and approach to the Commonwealth of Independent States. He will be visiting Kiev next month and we both want to support President Kuchma and the new Ukrainian Government in introducing the much-needed programme of economic reform.

    President Yeltsin described the encouraging developments in Russia over the course of this year and he may wish to say more about that. He described, with justification, a more stable political atmosphere and a significant improvement in the economic situation; inflation much lower than before, production growing in some sectors and privatisation having moved with a quite remarkable speed over the past twelve months or so; economic and political reform are now firmly embedded and I assured the President of our continuing support.

    We needed to spend very little time indeed on the direct bilateral relationship between Russia and the United Kingdom.

    On foreign policy questions, there are no significant disagreements.

    We both wish to see trade and investment increased and we discussed some ways in which we might achieve this. The President of the Board of Trade, Michael Heseltine, will be looking at these subjects in greater detail at a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Cherkin which takes place tomorrow.

    This was the fourth meeting that President Yeltsin and I had had this year and his fourth visit to the United Kingdom. Each of those visits have been different and this one had a very special character; it was useful and it was enjoyable; it was both of these things in equal parts and I believe it justly reflected the very friendly relations that exist at the moment between the United Kingdom and Russia so I was delighted to have the President and Mrs. Yeltsina as our guests this weekend and I hope at some stage in the future we will encourage them to return again for a similar exercise.

    PRESIDENT YELTSIN:

    Thank you very much indeed, ladies and gentlemen. In view of the fact that we have very little time because I have to now fly out to New York to the session of the United Nations and have to make a speech at the General Assembly of the United Nations I will not speak in detail in my introductory remarks, I will not touch on all the various aspects of our talks.

    I would very much like to thank both Mr. and Mrs. Major for their warm hospitality, for all the warm conditions, the organisation and for the way in which they organised our work and our time which guaranteed the fact that we could combine both great pleasure – a wonderful walk – and a very very full working programme of talks.

    We discussed in effect absolutely all the aspects of the questions, both internal questions and bilateral relations and various international questions and that for me was extremely useful just before my visit to the United States of America especially in view of the fact that I will be speaking at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

    This was a working meeting which took place at the invitation of Norma and John Major and I have to say that the character of our meeting was precisely that character which enabled us to have an extremely warm and absolutely frank and sincere exchange of views. I don’t think that even as little as two, three, four – let alone five – years ago there would have been the possibility for such a meeting and I have to underline the fact that the President of Russia has been to Chequers for the first time. I would very much like to thank you very warmly and I will now finish my remarks and I am ready to answer your questions.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (BBC WORLD SERVICE):

    Prime Minister, I would like to put a question to you and a short question at the end to President Yeltsin.

    You mentioned that you discussed the question of Russia and its relations with the other CIS countries and last week the Russian intelligence service produced a report on this which suggested that Russia is not entirely happy with the way we in the West look at Russia’s relations with the CIS. Could you say a bit more about that and could President Yeltsin say if there is an actual date for his visit to Kiev next month?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We spent some time discussing the relationship with the CIS and clearly it is evolving. We see very considerable progress that has been made during the last 15/18 months in terms of the relationship within the Commonwealth. It is bound in a transitional phase to throw up the occasional difficulty, I think that is absolutely inevitable, but I think the way in which President Yeltsin has approached those difficulties, not least of course with Ukraine, has been with a great deal of restraint and a great deal of political courage at home so I found it a very useful discussion and I believe that the President would have done so as well. As to Kiev, I will invite the President to answer.

    PRESIDENT YELTSIN:

    I would like to say not only a few words about the visit to Kiev but the work which we have been conducting in our relations with the CIS particularly in what relates to peacekeeping operations and we tried to douse the flames of inter-ethnic conflicts. We have doused those flames in Moldova, in Ofisha, in the Caucasus and our armed units are now effecting a peacekeeping operation in Apashia [phon] and Georgia and we are tackling the problem of the return of Georgian refugees to Apashia but we are somewhat surprised that there is no participation on the part of Western countries in those operations.

    With regard to Kiev, the exact date has not been fixed but we are preparing a full-scale political agreement between Russia and the Ukraine and this will relieve the existing tension in very many aspects. I have spoken to President Kuchma; we have come to an agreement that on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Ukraine Prime Minister Chernomyrdin will be going to Ukraine and I will pay an official visit in the middle of November.

    QUESTION (BBC WORLD SERVICE/UKRAINIAN SERVICE):

    [In Russian, not translated]

    PRESIDENT YELTSIN:

    The difficulty is simply my very full timetable.

    QUESTION:

    [In Russian, not translated]

    PRESIDENT YELTSIN:

    I have already said that the very form of our meeting at Chequers has brought us so close together that I consider that we have never had such excellent relations as those which exist between Great Britain and Russia. we tackled about two-and-a-half dozen questions and in more than the majority of those questions we agreed, even concerning international questions, and that is a very rare fact and I hope we continue in exactly the same way.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I can’t conceive that a few years ago people would have imagined the nature and content of the discussions that we have been able to have this weekend; it is quite unexpected and people would not have imagined that this could have happened just a few years ago.

    QUESTION (MIDDLE EAST BROADCASTING CENTRE):

    Mainly for Mr. Major and then for Mr. Yeltsin.

    You said, Prime Minister, earlier, that it is very important to solve the problem of Bosnia-Herzegovina for you, Russia and the United States and earlier this week the Prime Minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina said that to solve the problem of Bosnia-Herzegovina we need the intervention of the United States. Is it important that America intervene in this and was this summit this weekend the preparation of an agenda to talk about Bosnia-Herzegovina in the States for Mr. Yeltsin?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We have set out a political way forward and we think that is the way forward. I am not sure by “intervention” whether you meant diplomatically or some other way but we have set out a process. The Contact Group is in very close discussion continually and that of course involves the United States, Russia, ourselves and others.

    The point about Bosnia at the moment is that a great deal has been achieved over the last few months. Whereas a much larger part of Bosnia was in conflict some time ago, a great deal of that has diminished but it is fragile. The position in Sarajevo isn’t as good as it was a few weeks ago, the present position is both fragile and uncertain. The Contact Group recommendations – the peace plan – have not yet met favour with the Serbs.

    What we need to do is to continue to press those points. I don’t think it would be productive to go into the details of the discussions that we had and I don’t propose to do so except to say that the greater the extent to which we are able to work together, the greater likelihood there is that we will be able to produce a peaceful settlement that will stick in Bosnia and that is what we seek to do.

    QUESTION:

    What is the importance that you ascribe to the visit of Her Majesty The Queen to Russia?

    PRESIDENT YELTSIN:

    I have already said I consider this visit an absolutely historic and unique visit because such a visit of Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth to Russia means most importantly that Russia has firmly and irrevocably entered on to a democratic way. That is what is so important, that is the meaning of that visit. We have done everything to ensure that that visit should be absolutely top class.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, the President will be joining in the United States other luminaries including Gerry Adams and of course our own Michael Mates. Can I ask you what you would answer to those who would suggest that the semi-official visit by Michael Mates to the United States is the Government pressing the PR panic button?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think that is ludicrous frankly that proposition. We have made a great deal of progress on Northern Ireland, we want to see that progress continued. The Ulster Unionists have just visited North America. We need a balanced picture to be placed there and a balanced picture, I hope, is going to be set out before people.

    QUESTION (Russian newspaper “Today”):

    Mr. President, in the course of your talks with the Prime Minister, did you touch on the question of future investments in the Russian economy and does the Prime Minister need more guarantees from the Russian powers?

    PRESIDENT YELTSIN:

    The agreements that we reached and signed are being implemented and I have expressed my warmest thanks to John Major but we have also agreed to continue to enlarge the scope of the financing of those general programmes which we are implementing particularly in the cleaning up and the elimination of chemical and nuclear weapons.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I will add a word about investments. We did spend some time discussing that. We discussed it at length in February, we discussed it again on this occasion, it will be discussed further by Deputy Prime Minister Cherkin who is here today and Michael Heseltine tomorrow so there is a great deal of continuing work.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Arrival Statement with President Yeltsin – 24 September 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint arrival statement with President Yeltsin at Brize Norton on Saturday 24th September 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I would like to welcome President Yeltsin and Mrs. Yeltsina to the United Kingdom this morning. It is an informal visit and one that Norma and I have been much looking forward to.

    The genesis of this weekend is a discussion that the President and I had in Moscow last February when I invited him to join us. We intend it to be an informal occasion; we will have the opportunity to discuss a range of both long-term and short-term issues but we also intend to-spend some time enjoying ourselves. I don’t necessarily therefore expect that we will be issuing a communique at the end – these are discussions that are geared to the long-term – so let me simply say this morning we are delighted to see President Yeltsin and Mrs. Yeltsina with us and they are very welcome guests indeed in the United Kingdom.

    PRESIDENT YELTSIN:

    I would like to thank Prime Minister John Major and Mrs. Major for the invitation that has been made quite some time ago and of course this is not my first visit here to Britain. I am extremely happy to be here and I certainly remember our previous meetings with the Prime Minister, meetings that gave wonderful results. Now the time has come to compare notes. We have signed quite a number of agreements, we have held talks, we have signed all sorts of documents, now we need this opportunity in order to compare our opinions of whether we are going in the right direction. In my opinion, the state of Russian/British relations is good, the relationship is developing as we envisaged.
    As far as international problems are concerned, frankly speaking, I do not recall a single serious issue where our opinions and approaches do not concur but in fact we do have lots of themes to raise during these one-and-a-half days.

    I would like to thank the Prime Minister but in my closing remarks I would also like to point out that we are anxiously awaiting the visit of Her Majesty The Queen to Russia; this is going to be a first historic visit and is going to take place from the 17th to the 20th of October.

    I would like to pass on my best regards and my best wishes to all those living in Britain and thank you very very much for your hospitality.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Thank you very much. We will have something to say when the President leaves tomorrow lunchtime.

  • Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview in Naples (I) – 9 July 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s doorstep interview in Naples, after meeting President Yeltsin, on Saturday 9th July 1994.

    QUESTION:

    [Inaudible]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am delighted he is here. We discussed the prospect of him attending when I was in Moscow earlier this year and I am delighted he is here. He has a very substantial contribution to make.

    QUESTION:

    Did you discuss the death of the North Korean President at all?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No. It is very probable we will do that this evening but we didn’t discuss it in our brief discussion just now.

    QUESTION:

    Are there any other things which you got out of the meeting which you found pleasing and welcoming?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We discussed a number of bilateral matters. We discussed the Queen’s forthcoming trip to Russia when she will be going to Moscow and St. Petersburg and perhaps other places. President Yeltsin I hope is coming to the United Kingdom. And then we spent a substantial amount of time on Bosnia.

    QUESTION:

    What did you discuss on Bosnia?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We discussed the prospects of the Contact Group’s report being accepted by both sides and how to play our part in encouraging them to accept it. The sooner we can turn a not terribly satisfactory ceasefire into a permanent ceasefire and peace settlement the better and those were the matters we were talking about.

    QUESTION:

    Did you discuss Chernobyl?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We haven’t done so yet. We will be discussing that with him this evening.

    QUESTION:

    Will it be a sticky point?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think so, no certainly not.

  • PMQT Written Answers – 21 February 1994

    Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 21st February 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant

    Mr. Llew Smith : To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 17 December, Official Report, column 958, what reply has been sent to the Members of the United States Congress, Japanese Diet and hon. and right hon. Members on their appeal for a review and public inquiry on THORP; and on what date.

    The Prime Minister : My hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and Countryside replied to right hon. and hon. Members on 16 February.

     

    Royal Family (Education)

    Mr. Frank Field : To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on Her Majesty’s Government’s policy in respect of the education and upbringing of those in line to the throne.

    The Prime Minister : No. This has traditionally been regarded as a matter for the royal family.

     

    International Investments Ltd., Gibraltar

    Mr. Beggs : To ask the Prime Minister if he will ask the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic to appoint a High Court inspector to investigate International Investments Ltd., Gibraltar–in liquidation–and its associated companies in the Irish Republic during their next meeting.

    The Prime Minister : No. The Royal Ulster Constabulary is, however, carrying out investigations into the affairs of International Investments Ltd., with the assistance of the authorities in the Republic of Ireland.

     

    Government Leader

    Mr. Mackinlay : To ask the Prime Minister which Minister is authorised in the event of his temporary incapacity through injury of illness, to head the Government in the immediate period following such incapacity and before Her Majesty the Queen is able to make a temporary appointment of a chief Minister.

    The Prime Minister : The arrangements made would depend on the circumstances at the time.

     

    Highfield Hospital

    Mr. Burden : To ask the Prime Minister what response he has made to the letters sent to him by the Save Highfield Hospital Campaign on 20 November 1993 and 31 January 1994 and to the petition on Highfield hospital which was handed in to 10 Downing Street on 20 November 1993; and if he will make a statement.

    The Prime Minister : My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has replied on my behalf.

     

    Devon and Cornwall

    Mr. Streeter : To ask the Prime Minister (1) if he will list the results of the Government’s policies in Devon and Cornwall since 1983; and if he will make a statement;

    (2) whether he will list, by Government Department, the principal aid given to Devon and Cornwall in each year since 1983.

    The Prime Minister : Since 1983, the Department of Trade and Industry policy and programmes have committed more than £71.4 million in grants and loans to industry and commerce in Devon and Cornwall. This has created or safeguarded more than 21,000 jobs spread across 3,363 companies.

    In addition, the Devon and Cornwall Development Bureau has received over £4.25 million to assist in the attraction of inward investment to the two counties. Overseas investment in the area was more than £164 million.

    Government policies of low inflation, low interest rates and less regulation provide the foundation for growth across the country.

     

    Public Appointments

    Mr. Llew Smith : To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Sir T. Arnold) of 4 February, Official Report, column 972, if he will give those details on the number of public appointments made by Ministers or by the Crown or nominations by Ministers that can be compiled without incurring disproportionate cost.

    The Prime Minister : I have nothing further to add to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Hazel Grove on 4 February 1994, Official Report, column 972.

     

    Design Council

    Mr. Bayley : To ask the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a copy of the representations that he has received from Mr. Ivor Owen, the former director-general of the Design Council, about the British railway manufacturing industry, together with a copy of his reply to Mr. Owen.

    The Prime Minister : As far as I am aware, I have received no such letter.

     

    Official Gifts

    Mr. Tony Banks : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the official gifts he has received since November 1990.

    The Prime Minister : No.

     

    Council of Europe

    Mr. Tony Banks : To ask the Prime Minister how many conventions have been agreed by the Council of Europe since 1964; and how many have been acceded to by Her Majesty’s Government in full or in part.

    The Prime Minister : Seventy-two conventions have been agreed by the Council of Europe since–and including–1964. The Government have acceded to 34 of these and signed, but not yet ratified, a further seven.

     

    Iraq

    Mr. Dalyell : To ask the Prime Minister what discussions he is having with President Clinton and President Mitterrand about the increase in malnutrition-related marasmus and other diseases in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates.

    The Prime Minister : I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 25 January, Official Report, column 153. We are also in regular touch with France over Iraq, including the humanitarian situation.

     

    Departmental Accounting Officers

    Mr. Rowlands : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the occasions since 1979 when Ministers have issued written instructions to override a Department’s accounting officer’s objections.

    The Prime Minister [holding answer 2 February 1994] : The issue of such an instruction is entirely a matter for the Minister and accounting officer concerned. Therefore, no central records are maintained.

     

    Pergau Project

    Mr. Alan Williams : To ask the Prime Minister when he was first informed that the Foreign Secretary intended to issue a direction to the accounting officer in respect of the Pergau project.

    The Prime Minister [holding answer 10 February 1994] : In February 1991.

     

    Malaysia

    Mr. Rogers : To ask the Prime Minister on how many occasions Tan Sri Arumugam, joint managing director, GEC-Malaysia, has visited his office in the past three years; and if he will list the occasions.

    The Prime Minister [holding answer 17 February 1994] : Once, in 1992, on the occasion of an official dinner for the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

     

    President Yeltsin

    Mr. Wareing : To ask the Prime Minister what views he received from President Yeltsin on the NATO ultimatum to the Bosnian Serbs during his discussion with him on Tuesday 15 February; and if he will make a statement.

    The Prime Minister [holding answer 18 February 1994] : I described the specific terms of the North Atlantic Council’s response to the United Nations Secretary General’s request for NATO assistance at Sarajevo. I agreed with President Yeltsin that our objectives were the same. Both the United Kingdom and Russia wanted to see an effective ceasefire implemented in Sarajevo, with heavy weapons brought under United Nations control. We both strongly supported the negotiations for a peaceful settlement.

    We discussed President Yeltsin’s decision to send a personal emissary to Belgrade. He told me that he was considering sending additional Russian troops to assist UNPROFOR in maintaining control over heavy weapons. I welcomed this, and agreed with President Yeltsin that it was important for Russia and her western partners in the European Union and the United States to use their channels of influence to promote a ceasefire in Sarajevo and an overall settlement. President Yeltsin stressed that Russia wished to be a full participant in this process, and I welcome his Government’s announcement on 17 February that the additional forces will be made available to UNPROFOR.

     

    Regional Offices

    Mr. Rendel : To ask the Prime Minister which of Her Majesty’s Government’s Departments have been incorporated into integrated regional offices since 1992.

    The Prime Minister [holding answer 18 February 1994] : New Government offices for the regions will come into being in April, combining the existing regional offices of the Departments of the Environment, of Employment, of Trade and Industry and of Transport.