Question: What message did you take to your meeting with the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding on Wednesday night?

Bill Rammell: Firstly there is more interest in Arab-British issues and co-operation than I think for a long time and I think that is for a whole series of reasons and is very positive. There is more media and general public interest and I think that is a positive. Partly what I am going to be saying is that, although I wouldn't want to overstate it, I think both on the Middle East peace process and on reconstructing and rebuilding Iraq there are cautious grounds for optimism. And certainly I think there are more grounds for optimism than there has been for some time.

Particularly on the Middle East peace process I think the international community is very, very united.

Question: Palestinian prime minister Abu Mazen has reportedly offered his resignation to president Yasser Arafat. Can the Palestinians unite sufficiently on their own side in order to be able to negotiate with Israel and the wider world?

Bill Rammell: In general terms I would say to you that both leaders - Abu Mazen and Ariel Sharon - have both got very difficult challenges to face up to. All I would say is that thus far through the process I think the progress has been positive. I don't want to overstate it, but I think we've got the best prospects for carrying through and really genuinely achieving peace than has been there for an awful long while.

Question: On the "road map" to peace in the Middle East specifically, it requires some very deep commitments and big steps on both sides. And given that there are going to be so many problems in achieving them can we realistically expect to get into phase two?

Bill Rammell: I would hope we can. It's early days, I think the initial signs have been positive but we clearly need to see further simultaneous progress on both sides. There are difficulties, there will be difficulties but I think so far we're impressed with the progress.

Question: In terms of the Foreign Office and Britain's role in that progress, would it be fair to say that the road map was the price the prime minister extracted from Washington for sending to troops to Iraq?

Bill Rammell: No I wouldn't because we did what we did on Iraq because we believed it to be right, because we believed that there was a real danger and threat from Iraq and we felt that was something that we had to do and I still very strongly hold that judgement.

However it is the case that we have very strongly at the same time pressed for the publication of the road map because we felt that that was very important. And in terms of some of the wider concerns in the Middle East I think that was important to achieve.

Question: On the White House's role in all this, much has been made of the president's personal commitment to the peace process. But today he is in Africa, Iraq is obviously still a huge issue and then there is Iran, North Korea and presidential elections around the corner in 2004. Can he really be expected to give this the kind of single minded approach that is going to be needed?

Bill Rammell: Well I think progress so far is positive. I think President Bush does have a personal commitment to the process, he is the first president to call unequivocally for a two state solution in the Middle East and I think that is very much the right way forward. Clearly there will be challenges and difficulties but I think he is committed to it.

Question: Is there anything more the international community can be doing to help the situation in the Middle East than they are already?

Bill Rammell: Clearly the monitoring mechanism is critical and there are already moves in that direction. And clearly from an aid point of view we've committed substantial amounts of aid and support, as have other countries, and I think that is very positive.

But I think as much as anything all members of the international community have got to keep the channels of communication with both sides open so that we keep pressing and persuading that this is the right path to go down and that it will be difficult but that people should pursue it.

Question: Going back to Iraq, the issue of weapons of mass destruction (or WMD) is very prominent at the moment and is going to be until they are found. Do you think that as long as they are unfound that the suspicions about why we went to war in Iraq might hinder Britain and America's influence in the region as a whole?

Bill Rammell: No I think we need to take ourselves back to last November and Resolution 1441 at the Security Council where the whole international community agreed unanimously, 15 votes to zero, that we were giving Saddam Hussein a final ultimatum that he had to give up his weapons of mass destruction because he posed a threat to the region and the international community. He failed to respond to that, that was why we took military action.

I have no doubt that he was developing a programme of weapons of mass destruction before the conflict and I've got no doubt that in time the evidence for that will be found.

I think part of the difficulty is that with some of the newspapers and with some of the campaigners, that they are people who whatever is found, whatever the circumstances will never agree that that we were right to do what we did. Now I think they are entitled to their view, I happen to think that they are wrong.

Question: But are there not a lot of people in your own party who did back the decision to go to war who have subsequently become more and more concerned about the reasons behind that and will probably stay that way for as long as WMD are not found?

Bill Rammell: I think you overstate the case. I think the vast majority of Labour Party members who did support the military conflict still believe it was right to do so. But I also remain convinced that we will find the evidence that substantiates the WMD programme that was being developed.

But it will take time, one example is that one of the most worrying aspects of his unaccounted for weapons programme was the unaccounted for anthrax. You could locate that in a vehicle smaller than a petrol tanker and yet it could kill millions of people. In a country the size of France that will take time to identify either where it is or what has happened to it.

Question: We are obviously very close to the United States on Iraq and also on the Israel-Palestine issue. Is there any way that we differ at all from the White House in terms of our position on the Middle East?

Bill Rammell: I know that this is the impression, that we are absolutely similar and identical to the United States and I wouldn't want to deny the fact that they are very strong allies and we have a common culture and a common set of values and on many key issues we do work together.

But there are differences, if you look at the situation in Cuba, if you look at the International Criminal Court, if you look at the Kyoto protocol, we take a different view. With friends you can agree to disagree on some of these issues.

And specifically within the Middle East, for example on Iran, we have the same concerns about nuclear proliferation and the danger from terrorist groups but we pursue different strategies, we believe in the process of engagement and I think that's an area where there is a difference of emphasis between us and the States. So yes, we are strong allies and yes we work together but we're certainly don't just do everything that the United States does and there are areas where there are differences.