[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 21 (Monday, May 25, 1998)]
[Pages 894-897]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Interview With Prime Minister Blair by John King of the Cable News 
Network in Weston-under-Lizard

May 16, 1998

Northern Ireland Peace Process

    Mr. King. Let me start by thanking both of you for sharing some time 
on what is obviously a very busy day. We're in the closing days of the 
campaign for the peace initiative in Northern Ireland, and suddenly 
there seems to be apprehension, a lot of opposition. You see some 
slippage in the public opinion polls, the critics saying that you see 
these people, terrorists, criminals, at rallies being hailed as heroes.
    Each of you, if you could share your thoughts on what you think of 
the tone of the campaign, and do you share that apprehension? And how do 
you counter the message of those who say, vote no?
    Prime Minister Tony Blair. I think before we get a vote as important 
as this, there is bound to be a lot of apprehension, consideration by 
people, and it's right that they treat this seriously, because it 
affects their future. And one of the fascinating things is there has 
been very little debate in this referendum campaign about the 
institutional structure, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the relationship 
with the Republic of Ireland, because the thing has wrecked every 
attempt to have a peace agreement in Northern Ireland for the past 50, 
60 years. Instead, people are worried, as you say, about things like 
prisoners.
    But as I say to people, when you look at the facts, these guys who 
were out on the platform the other day under day-release schemes, they 
were done years ago. The vast majority of prisoners will be out within a 
few years anyway. And in the end, people have got to look at the package 
as a whole and say, ``What is the best for the future: to have stability 
and prosperity and the chance to bring up your children with some 
prospect of staying in Northern Ireland and doing well, or to slip back 
into the ways that Northern Ireland knew for decade upon decade of 
division and bitterness and hatred?''
    President Clinton. I think some of the reservation has come from 
people who wonder: Well, is there some sort of trick here; can somebody 
have it both ways; can they be part of the political life of the 
country; and can they sort of condone violence? And I can tell you, at 
least from America's point of view, the answer to that is no. Anybody 
who resorts to violence will have no friends in the United States. I 
don't care what side they're on or what their heritage is or what their 
previous ties are.
    And I think I can speak for the overwhelming majority of Irish-
Americans in both the Catholic and Protestant communities, that all we 
have ever wanted was a just peace. This peace embodies the principle of 
consent. It gives the Irish people of both traditions the right to chart 
their future in Northern Ireland and to make of it what they will. I 
think if it is embraced, you'll see a big increase in involvement of 
Irish-Americans and other Americans eager to invest in Northern Ireland, 
eager to lift prosperity and to show people the benefits of peace.
    And so I very much hope that they will take that leap of faith, and 
ask themselves a simple question: What is the downside risk of going 
forward? It is so much lower than

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the downside risk of blowing this opportunity.
    Mr. King. You at one point considered visiting at the end of this 
trip, going to Northern Ireland, to the Republic of Ireland, decided 
not, perhaps that it would be viewed as meddling. Now in the last 24 to 
48 hours, you've decided to speak out again forcefully, publicly. Why 
did you feel that necessary? And in your view, what role can you play in 
that process?
    And sir, what role do you think the people of Ireland will consider 
as they listen to the American President?
    President Clinton. Well, I decided to speak out because I think that 
the people of Northern Ireland know that I care a lot about the peace 
process, that the United States has been involved in it, that we've 
tried to not only--I think it's important to point out--not only has Mr. 
Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, been to the United States a lot, but I have 
spent far more time with Mr. Trimble and other leaders, Unionist 
leaders, than any American President ever has.
    I've tried to listen to both sides, to learn, to just encourage them 
to make their own peace and chart their own future. And so I think it's 
appropriate for me to speak out. I just was afraid if I went there--I 
can remember when people from outside used to come to my home State and 
try to influence elections. It never worked, because in the end voters 
instinctively know they have to live with the consequences of their 
decision. So that's different.
    But if a journalist like you asks me a question about what I think 
the arguments are, I think that it's important for me to answer. And I 
hope that people on all sides of the issue will listen to what I have to 
say, because at least I have some experience here; I know something 
about this. I know something about what happened in Bosnia; I know 
something about what happened in the Middle East; I know something about 
people who are divided and the difference in peace and war, or peace and 
sort of purgatory with violence. And peace has unfailingly been better, 
in the toughest of circumstances.
    Mr. King. As to people who actually get a vote listen to him, your 
friend--why should they listen to him?
    Prime Minister Blair. I think people do listen because people know 
the President is sincere, deeply committed, and actually knowledgeable 
about what has happened in Northern Ireland. And I can say, right from 
the time I became Prime Minister, but actually before that when the 
President visited Northern Ireland in 1995 I think it was, that his 
visit made a huge impact. People felt that he was someone that 
understood. Perhaps more than any other American President, people 
really feel that President Clinton both understands, knows--and people, 
they can also feel his willing them to do well. And I think people 
certainly will listen to that very much.
    Mr. King. As you look forward to this vote, take us back if you 
will. You have described this process as agonizingly difficult. In the 
last few hours, you had a series of transatlantic conversations--
yourselves, Mr. President, you were on the phone with Mr. Adams I 
believe twice; Mr. Trimble at least once; John Hume. Can you take us 
inside those conversations--pacing, raising your voice? You had people 
on each side that, ``Nevermind, I can't do this. I'm going to back 
out.'' How did you keep it together, and how did you interrelate 
personally as you went through this process?
    Prime Minister Blair. Well, I don't think it was so much a question 
of raising our voice or--obviously, these are conversations that you 
have with people at a particularly difficult moment, and you don't go 
right back over them the whole time. But I think in many ways what I 
found was tremendously useful in respect to the President's intervention 
was that people did and do respect his views on it, because, obviously 
in part, he's the President of the United States, but actually it's more 
to do with him personally, having shown commitment all the way through, 
having listened to all sides in the conflict, and therefore having some 
standing because of this own personal commitment, some credibility, if 
you like, to say to people, ``Look, the eyes of the world are upon us. 
Let's see if we can go for this thing and make it happen.''
    Mr. King. And as Thursday night turned to Good Friday, at any point 
did you think:

[[Page 896]]

This isn't going to happen; it's going to collapse?
    Prime Minister Blair. I'm afraid I thought that pretty regularly, at 
about hourly intervals. But in the end--I mean, what always comes back 
home to me is we're 2 years off the year 2000; there is so much 
happening in the world, so many changes that I've seen in the last 10 or 
15 years of my lifetime. I can't believe 2 years off the millennium that 
a place like Northern Ireland, which has got this extraordinary 
potential, where the people are tremendous people, as you know if you've 
been there--I cannot believe we can't find a way to live with each other 
2 years off the new millennium with all the changes in the world, with 
all the possibilities there are. So even though a lot of the time I was 
sitting there thinking, can we really make this happen, I have a sort of 
inner optimism about it.
    Mr. King. And what was your message in those phone calls? You were 
probably half asleep as you started some of them.
    President Clinton. Well, first of all, I just--when I talked to 
Prime Minister Blair or Prime Minister Ahern or George Mitchell, I was 
mostly listening. But when I talked to the parties, what I heard from 
them actually was very like what you're hearing from the general public 
now. It was sort of the darkness before the dawn. It was like, ``Okay, 
we made this deal and, oh, there's a few things down the road that we'd 
like to improve,'' but what they really needed was not me to talk about 
the specifics, what they really needed was for me to remind them of the 
big picture, that it was time to join hands and jump off the diving 
board together and get in the pool and swim to shore.
    And I say that not in a disrespectful way but in a respectful way. 
It's very hard, once you've been estranged from people for a long time, 
to overcome your fears and distrust. And as I have said repeatedly, I'll 
never forget Prime Minister Rabin telling me before Israel signed the 
agreement with the PLO, that everybody was reluctant to do it, but you 
don't make peace with your friends. You have to make peace with those 
and then make them your friends, because of the estrangement of the 
past. That's what I want people to think about.
    If every voter in Northern Ireland says, ``What are we going to look 
like in 2000, and what's it going to look like in 2010,'' Britain here--
Mr. Blair is the President of the EU in this cycle. Britain leading the 
united Europe; Ireland a part of the united Europe with one of the best 
reforming economies, the Republic of Ireland; Northern Ireland, where 
Britain and Ireland join in some sort of fashion no matter what decision 
they make.
    Now, they're going to be at the vortex of something very, very big, 
if they can just liberate themselves it could

change the past. They don't have to give up their traditions; they can 
value them. They've agreed to the principle of consent. They have set up a 
mechanism by which they can chart their own future. What remains is really 
just to take the leap of faith and realize that the risk of going forward 
is infinitesimal, tiny, compared to the risk of letting this opportunity 
slip away.

Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia

    Mr. King. We're short on time, so if I could ask each of you in 
closing, tensions in another part of the world have been a major theme 
of discussion here at your meeting, the Pakistani Prime Minister today 
saying he was disappointed in the communique relating to condemning 
India for the nuclear test. If I could ask each of you your reaction to 
that and how you see that process going forward in the days ahead.
    Prime Minister Blair. It's a very strong statement in the 
communique, condemning the Indian nuclear tests and, what's more, 
putting strong pressure on India to sign up unconditionally for the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And I 
urge Pakistan now, as we all do in our communique, not to follow them 
down that route because the world is a dangerous enough place as it is, 
and we fear for the future if these nuclear tests carry on.
    President Clinton. Well, first, it's the strongest possible 
statement we could have gotten. Some of our members are philosophically 
opposed to the imposition of sanctions under virtually any 
circumstances. And as you know, the United States, Japan, Canada, 
perhaps others will follow, did impose

[[Page 897]]

economic sanctions. But it's a strong statement. What we have now to do 
is to build on it. We have to tell the Pakistanis, ``If you're willing 
to not go down this road, which we believe is a loser, let's work 
together to try to define a way to protect your security without 
becoming a nuclear power.''
    And we have to go back to the Indians and say, ``Let's find a way to 
protect your security and honor the greatness of your democracy without 
becoming a nuclear power. This is a bad thing, but let's minimize this. 
This is not a good thing for the world. The Russians and the Americans, 
we're trying to lower our nuclear arsenals. We're trying to make this 
problem go away for the world. And we do not need to just have a whole 
lot of other people with smaller nuclear arsenals on the assumption that 
they'll never be used. You can't do that.''
    Mr. King. Thank you both.
    President Clinton. Thank you.

Note: The interview began at 5:10 p.m. in the Weston Park estate. In his 
remarks, the President referred to Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams; Ulster 
Unionist Party leader David Trimble; John Hume of the Social Democratic 
and Labour Party; George Mitchell, chairman of the multiparty talks in 
Northern Ireland; and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan. A tape 
was not available for verification of the content of this interview.