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Key excerpts: Blair and Bush statements

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  • Key excerpts: Blair and Bush statements

    Key excerpts: Blair and Bush statements

    President George W Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair have stressed their resolve to stick to the 30 June deadline for handing power to Iraqis at a joint press conference in Washington DC.
    They also stressed that the so-called roadmap for Middle East peace had not been abandoned.

    The following are key excerpts from their statements:




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    President George W Bush:

    The past few weeks have been hard, and the days ahead will surely bring their own challenges.

    What we are seeing in Iraq is an attempted power-grab by extremists and terrorists. They will fail. The extremists will fail because our coalition will not allow Iraq's future to be stolen by a violent few. They will also fail because they are not widely supported by the Iraqi people, who have no desire to trade one tyrant for another.

    Many Iraqi leaders are showing great personal courage in helping to build a free Iraq. And we stand with them and we appreciate their courage.

    And troops from our countries and other coalition friends are showing great personal courage as they help Iraq move toward democracy. And we appreciate their sacrifice and courage as well.

    One of the essential commitments we have made to the Iraqi people is this: they will control their own country. No citizen of America or Britain would want the government of their nation in the hands of others and neither do the Iraqis.

    And this why the June 30th date for the transfer of sovereignty will be kept.

    This transfer will demonstrate to the Iraqi people that our coalition has no interest in occupation. On that date, the coalition provisional authority will cease to exist. The coalition forces will remain in Iraq to help the new government succeed.



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    Prime Minister Tony Blair:

    Our strategy, political and military is as follows: first, we stand firm.

    We will do what it takes to win this struggle. We will not yield, we will not back down in the face of attacks, either on us or on defenceless civilians.

    Second, we hold absolutely to the thirtieth of June timetable for the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqis themselves.

    Third, we will redouble our efforts to build the necessary capability of the Iraqis themselves to take increased responsibility for security and law and order, the measures for recruiting, training and equipping Iraqi police and civil defence corps will be intensified.

    Fourth, we will carry forward the plan for reconstruction and investment in Iraq so that all parts of Iraq: Sunni, Shia and Kurdish know that they have a place and a future in the new Iraq that is being created.

    Fifth, the UN will have a central role, as now, in developing the program and machinery for political transition to full Iraqi democracy, and we will seek a new UN Security Council resolution to embody the political and security way forward.

    We reaffirm again the importance of a solution for the Middle East peace process.

    We will seek a new UN Security Council resolution to embody the political and security way forward

    Prime Minister Blair

    We welcome the Israeli proposal to disengage from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, we want the quartet to meet as soon as possible to discuss how it can support the Palestinian Authority in particular economically, politically and in respect of security to respond to that offer.

    We reaffirm that this is part of a process to get us back into the road map, which we continue to believe offers the only realistic route to the two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace. We have therefore an agenda for Iraq: for change and for democracy in Iraq.

    We have also an agenda: to help overcome the problems in our world.

    The problems, not just of terrorism, but the problems of the breeding grounds of terrorism.

    And I believe that our two countries will continue to play a role as allies and friends in securing, not just a decent future for the people of Iraq, but a decent future for the people everywhere in our world today.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/3633419.stm
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