BICOM

Quartet envoy Tony Blair has called on Western governments to do more to help liberal and democratic elements in the Middle East and North Africa in the context of the Arab Spring. Speaking on Thursday to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he warned about the rise of Islamist elements who are more organised than liberals but who may not want genuine democracy. He told the programme: ‘You have got this Islamist movement, in the Muslim Brotherhood, which is very well organised, and where frankly, it is not clear that they want the same things as us and it is not clear that the type of democracy they would create would be a genuine democracy.’

In the same interview Blair urged Hamas to give up violence, saying: ‘I think if Hamas were prepared to, at least, say: ‘Look, so far as we are concerned, we will pursue our political objectives but by non-violent means,’ I think that would give you a far greater opportunity of creating circumstances in which you get could get all the Palestinian parties in some sort of dialogue.”