Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-13-Speech-2-281"
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"en.20040113.11.2-281"2
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".
I noted that when the American Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, whom I much respect and admire, was undertaking his hearings in Congress before he was confirmed as Secretary of State, he made a powerful case – I may not be using exactly the same words he used, but similar ones – against knee-jerk sanctions and against always trying to secure one's political objectives by cutting people off through sanctions. He has always been a powerful exponent of constructive and hard-headed engagement. I am not saying that he would necessarily agree with us on Syria, but I think that is what we have been trying to do on Syria just as we have been trying to do it on Iran. It does not mean that we are simple-witted; it does not mean that there is not a spine to what we are trying to do, but, provided people will engage with us on issues like human rights, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and trade liberalisation, then we should be prepared to hold out a hand and try to encourage them.
We have had a series of extremely useful negotiations with Syria over the past few months. The Commission has put a great deal of energy and effort into this process, as have the Syrians. The Syrians, on issues like tariff dismantling, have moved further and faster in the last few months than most of us thought possible. I negotiated, or virtually negotiated, the clause on human rights when I was in Damascus a few months ago, and my excellent officials have been carrying through the negotiations on other things, including weapons of mass destruction. Now the proposals that we discussed with the Syrians
the Council are being discussed by the Council. The Council will have to decide whether we should go back to the Syrians and try to secure more from them than we have done so far.
I have no doubt that if we can come off with a strong and sensible agreement with Syria – the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle of our Euro-Mediterranean partnership – then everybody will benefit from that: everybody who wants to see a more prosperous future in the region, everybody who wants to avoid a clash of civilisations between the European, North American and Islamic worlds and everybody who wants to see terrorism and insecurity tackled in the most effective and sustainable way."@en1
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