02 October 2001
Text: Blair Calls on Taliban to Surrender Bin Laden
(British prime minister addresses Labor Party conference Oct. 2) (400)
British Prime Minister Tony Blair says "there is no compromise
possible" with those who planned and supported the September 11
terrorist attacks in the United States.
"There's no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such
terror -- just a choice: defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it
we must," Blair told a British Labor Party conference in Brighton,
England, October 2.
While acknowledging the need to try to understand the causes of
terrorism, Blair emphasized the need to take action against those
responsible for the attacks.
"Be in no doubt at all," he said, "[Osama] Bin Laden and his people
organized this atrocity. The Taliban aid and abet him. ... And I say
to the Taliban: Surrender the terrorists or surrender power; that is
your choice."
What happened on September 11 "was without parallel in the bloody
history of terrorism," Blair said, and "nothing could ever justify"
those events.
"And let no one say this was a blow for Islam, when the blood of
innocent Muslims was shed," he added, referring to the hundreds of
Muslims who died in the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade
Center in New York.
In his address, Blair again offered his nation's "deepest sympathy ...
and profound solidarity" to the American people. "We were with you at
the first, we will stay with you to the last," he said.
The British prime minister spoke of his meeting in New York with the
families of the British victims of the terrorist attacks, noting that
they do not want revenge, "They want something better in memory of
their loved ones."
Such a memorial, Blair believes, "can and should be greater than
simply the punishment of the guilty."
"It is that out of the shadow of this evil should emerge lasting good:
destruction of the machinery of terrorism wherever it is found; hope
amongst all nations of a new beginning where we seek to resolve
differences in a calm and ordered way; greater understanding between
nations and between faiths; and above all, justice and prosperity for
the poor and dispossessed, so that people everywhere can see the
chance of a better future for the hard work and creative power of the
free citizen, not the violence and savagery of the fanatic," he said.
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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