I have greatly enjoyed my visit to Bahrain and am grateful for the wonderful welcome I have received from HH the Amir and the Bahraini government. I am only sorry that the visit has had to be so brief. The Bahraini government and people are old friends of Britain. I have enjoyed making new acquaintances and renewing existing ones. It was good to see the Prime Minister, Shaikh Khalifa, again whom I last saw as my guest at 10, Downing Street. And I have greatly valued the frankness and cordiality of the talks I have had here. They have covered a wide range of bilateral, regional and world issues, on which I shall welcome your questions. But I hope you will allow me first to make a short statement on the issue which I know is of primary concern to Bahrain and all our other friends in the Gulf and the Arab world.
Arab-Israel
I have had long, interesting and useful exchanges with my hosts on the prospects for bringing lasting peace to the Middle East. They have made clear to me in a constructive manner the Arab viewpoint. I hope I was able to make clear our understanding of this viewpoint. For my part I have explained British policy which, as you will know, is based, with that of our European Community partners, on the Venice Declaration of June 1980. Two principles lie at the heart of the Declaration: the right of all states in the area including Israel to existence and to security, and the need for acceptance and implementation of the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, including their right to self-determination.
Our commitment to that right is beyond question. For us self-determination means that the Palestinians must have the right freely to choose the political shape of their own future in the territories that will become theirs in the negotiated peace settlement we all so earnestly desire. No options must be [end p1] foreclosed for them, nor should any of us seek to lay down in advance how they should exercise their choice, through a referendum, elections, or in some other way. But I at least would express our hope that the procedure will be as democratic as possible. This is what Britain understands by justice for the Palestinian people.
It may be helpful if I also say something about the British attitude to the PLO. We are often asked why we do not recognise the PLO as the sole legitimate representatives of the Palestinians. First, we have an impartial principle that official government recognition is given only to other states, not to organisations. Second, it is not for us to determine who should represent the Palestinians. Only the Palestinian people can do that, preferably through elections. But we know of course that the PLO speaks for a great many Palestinians and that it has an important role to play in peace efforts and negotiations. But if it is to do this the PLO itself must show clearly that it is a responsible body ready, for its part, to put aside violence, to negotiate a settlement with Israel and to accept Israel's right to live in peace as part of a settlement. Because that too is a crucial principle, as I said, one of the two enshrined in the Venice Declaration. We have to tell our Arab friends that they cannot expect to achieve a peaceful settlement if they are not ready publicly to endorse that principle. We believe that in their hearts they do accept it: we hope that they—and the PLO—will recognise the need to endorse it publicly.
Finally, no-one should doubt that we and our partners in the Ten are firmly committed to pursuing an active and distinctive European policy in the search for a just peace. There are of course clear limits to what we can achieve. Our only power is ultimately the power of persuasion. We cannot instil into the parties the political will to make the concessions that will bring about a just settlement. But we can help by keeping in front of everyone's eyes the need for justice for both sides of the dispute and by proclaiming our conviction that negotiations on the balanced principles of the Venice Declaration would bring a just end to a conflict that has caused prolonged misery for the region and a threat to world peace.