02 October 2001

Blair Calls on Taliban to Surrender Bin Laden

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.