Terje Roed-Larson

At the United Nations in New York the US blocked an attempt by the Security Council to condemn Israel for its threat to deport the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. Britain abstained in the vote.

So, once again, the man at the eye of the storm which is whirling through the middle-east and blowing through chancelleries across the world, is Yasser Arafat.

Just before the vote took place Jeremy Paxman spoke to the UN's Special Envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larson. He's returned to Israel with the task of restarting the stalled peace talks. Jeremy asked him what the prospects for peace would be were Yasser Arafat to be expelled or even executed?

TERJE ROED-LARSEN:
I think such a move would be very dangerous and very counterproductive and potentially, it could destabilise a very fragile political situation in the region under the circumstances we have right now.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Can there be any kind of peace settlement without Mr Arafat's involvement?

TERJE ROED-LARSEN:
I don't think anybody are indispensable, theoretically speaking. I think sooner or later, there's bound to be a peace agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis, simply because it is of such deep interest to both peoples. It's the only way, the two- state solution, as prescribed in the so-called Road Map, is the only way out of the conflict. I think whatever leadership there is, sooner or later, they will have to move back to the table and move along the path as described in the Road Map.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
You sound remarkably upbeat. You don't think the Road Map's dead then?

TERJE ROED-LARSEN:
No, absolutely not. What we knew when we started the journey based on the Road Map with the two parties as our companions, we knew that the road would be very thorny and very bumpy. And we're now down in one of those bumps. However, I feel confident that we will get out of the crisis we are in now. It might get deeper, and there might be bloodshed, but there is no military solution to this conflict. There is no solution through any kind of violence. There is only one solution, and that is a political solution based on the two-state solution.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Many of the people responsible for the violence, Hamas, for example, simply don't accept those terms of reference, do they?

TERJE ROED-LARSEN:
No, and this is, of course, one of the fundamental problems. However, I would like to say that Hamas, of course, has the right to say whatever they like and to promote whatever political programmes they want to promote. But they are not allowed to use violent means in order to realise their aspirations, and this is the key problem on the Palestinian side. There has to be a monopoly of the use of arms, and that monopoly should stay with the Palestinian Authority, and they should use their capacity on the security side in order to halt terror and in order to stop those who use force and weapons as a means to reach their political goals.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
What sort of timescale are you thinking about?

TERJE ROED-LARSEN:
The first step which has to be taken now on the Palestinian side is as rapidly as possible to get in a new Prime Minister. There is a Prime Minister nominee, a Mr Ahmed Qurei, who currently is the Speaker of the Palestinian Council, the equivalent to their Parliament. For him now to put together a cabinet, have it approved by chairman Arafat and presented and get a vote of confidence in the council is a paramount importance. And on this basis, there should be a renewed dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians and also with the key players in the international community, which is the so-called quartet, that is, Russia, the EU, ourselves, the United Nations, and the United States.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Well you know Mr Qurei. Is he his own man, or is he a creature of Yasser Arafat?

TERJE ROED-LARSEN:
Mr Qurei is a very highly qualified candidate for being Prime Minister. He is one of the most experienced of the Palestinian politicians and is also probably the most experienced negotiator which is highly respected. This on the Israeli side and in the international community, but of course, only time can show if he is empowered formally the way he should be and a key issue here is that all the security forces should be reporting to him through his Minister for the Interior. This is a key issue related to the empowerment,- to the empowerment question. His predecessor, Mr Mahmud Abbas, did not,- was not empowered in that field, which was one of the reasons why he eventually chose to step down.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Is your confidence in him shared by the Americans?

TERJE ROED-LARSEN:
Actually, I think the question of confidence is not only a personality issue. It's an institutional issue. The question is what will his authority be? And I think confidence in the international community will not only be related to his personality, which I think, as I said, everybody respects, but also, what are the institutional ramifications? And we don't know what these institutional ramifications will be. We know what he has been asking for, but if he would get it is another question. That's why that particular issue can only be addressed when we see what these institutional ramifications will be. In other words, what authority he will have as Prime Minister.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Terje Roed-Larsen, thank you.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.