Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-16-Speech-3-183"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20051116.17.3-183"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, our group has asked for this debate, and I would like to express my warm thanks to the other groups for having agreed to it without further ado.
What President Ahmadinejad of Iran said on 26 October about wiping Israel off the map is so monstrous that it must be condemned in the strongest terms. We know that the Ayatollah Khomeini, who led the Iranian revolution, took a similar line, but we are now all the more grateful to the former President Khatami for distancing himself from it.
To Israel – of which I have been critical on several occasions in this House – we say that, when something touches, as this does, in such a way on the security, stability, and integrity of Israel, then Israel enjoys our unconditional support, and that any and every attack upon Israel or attempt at destabilising it amounts to an attempt at jeopardising Western civilisation and constitutes a declaration of war upon Europe and the world at large. Of that, the Iranian Government must be made aware.
I find this development in Iran so very disappointing precisely because I was spending a whole week in Iran at the time that Ahmadinejad took office, and I was still under the illusion that not everything would turn out to be quite so bad as it looked. It is, however, precisely because things have turned out so badly that those who, with a great deal of goodwill, wanted to give the new government a chance must, today, say loud and clear: ‘nip this in the bud!’ – and that is the position we must adopt.
The tragic thing is that this behaviour on the part of what one must call the new Iranian regime does nothing to help those whom it is intended to help, namely the Palestinians. It is not only the Israelis who have a right to live within secure borders; we in the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats have always acknowledged the right of the Palestinians to do so as well. What the President of Iran is doing puts the Middle East peace process as a whole at risk, and that is bad news not only for Israel, but also for the dignity of the Palestinian people.
Following our criticisms of Ahmadinejad, I saw on German television demonstrations in Teheran, with men wearing suicide belts, something that in itself constitutes an incitement to terrorism. While in Iran, I saw a magazine in which young people were called on to sign up as suicide bombers or freedom fighters – you can call them what you like, but that is still an incitement to terrorism. I was told yesterday that Iranian children’s television programmes were showing Palestinian children wearing these suicide belts, so to speak, setting Iranian children an example and encouraging them to volunteer for these sorts of suicide missions. Yesterday, too, a British colleague told me that two people had been hanged in Iran as a punishment for homosexual relations. All this shows that what we are dealing with here is a reversion to the worst of the Middle Ages, and we must get the Iranian leadership to see the error of their ways.
Both the President-in-Office of the Council and Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner mentioned the civil nuclear programme. That is something to which Iran is, of course, entitled, but it does not enjoy our trust, and we can be virtually certain that the development of civil nuclear power will one day lead to its being used for nuclear weapons, which we, as a European and global civilisation, cannot allow to be placed in the hands of people whose outlook can be regarded as medieval.
This morning, I urged the Russian Government, through one of its representatives, to do everything in its power – for it enjoys a degree of influence on Iran – to bring about, at last, transparency in all these questions touching on nuclear energy; the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council have made similar demands.
We must be very vigilant where Iran is concerned. Iran must itself be aware that it is throwing away its chance of playing a major geographical and strategic role. Iran has a major role to play in the peace process in Afghanistan, the peace process in Iraq, in relations with Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine. The Iranians are a great people, many of whom took no part in the election because they feared the worst and could not prevent it. There are people of good will in Iran, and we should not forget them. Iran needs a good future, and it is to be hoped that its President will come to realise that he needs to adopt a civilised approach in his dealings with both people and states around the world."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples