Transcript of Doorstop with Bahrain TV

Subjects: Manama dialogue; Regional security

Transcript, E&OE, proof only

4 December 2010

REPORTER: Thank you very much for your time, Your Excellency. Could you please give us a statement of the importance of the Manama dialogue, particularly at this stage where the main issue worldwide is security?

MR RUDD: I think there’s great wisdom in what the Kingdom of Bahrain has done in hosting the Manama dialogue now for seven years. This had very modest beginnings but has now grown into something substantial. We’ve seen that same evolution with the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore focused on East Asia. After seven years here you can see genuine substantive engagement. Nothing is perfect but when you have those with radically different views able to gather comfortably in an environment such as this to engage, that is far better than not engaging. And when we’re dealing with such profound questions as Israel-Palestine; such profound questions as the future of Iran in the region; profound questions such as Lebanon; and profound questions such as what happens with the future of Yemen and the Horn of Africa, this is without doubt the number one forum in the world. So for the Bahrainis, they should be proud of it.

REPORTER: In terms of regional security, in terms of new policy, how do you foresee this?

MR RUDD: Well I think one of the presentations this morning from the Foreign Minister of Bahrain hit the nail on the head. And that is, it’s important to think outside the square about the application of regional institutions elsewhere to the particular needs of the Gulf. He made particular reference of ASEAN. If you look at the history of ASEAN, it comprised 10 states who historically had, by and large, very bad relations. But if you roll the clock on 35 years or so since the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in South East Asia, you now have a functioning regional institution where the traditional enmities between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, between those of Indo-China and the rest of non-Communist South East Asia, now shape themselves into something quite different. So I think the ASEAN parallels are useful to draw on, and I was particularly taken by the Bahraini Foreign Minister’s presentation on that today.

REPORTER: It has been suggested there should be a Centre for International Terrorism. What would be your opinion about this? Is this something that, I think it’s at the UN Security Council and it’s waiting for approval. What would be your opinion on that?

MR RUDD: Well the deliberations of the UN are a matter for all Governments. What I know for a fact in South East Asia is that, together with our friends in Indonesia, we established – some years ago now – the Jakarta Centre on Law Enforcement Cooperation, which has a specific counter-terrorism focus. It was a bilateral initiative; it has now grown into a regional initiative and a regional centre. It attracts funding from all around the world to build up the expertise to deal with a raft of counter-terrorism challenges, and associated law enforcement challenges. So that is a model we have in our part of the world. It is a matter for our good friends in the Gulf how they wish to prosecute it. But I would encourage the concept; it is a valuable one.

REPORTER: Thank you very much, Your Excellency.

MR RUDD: It’s good to be with you.

END

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