JOHN HUMPHRYS:                Sir Jeremy Greenstock it's 
unrealistic isn't it to expect a body with one hundred and eighty nine 
members to act effectively against terrorism, particularly given that some 
of those countries themselves support terrorism.

SIR JEREMY GREENSTOCK:        Yes, clearly we've got to get as 
many people as possible on line on 17..1373.  We..our job in the Counter 
Terrorism Committee is to upgrade the legislation and the executive machinery 
of every state in the UN who is willing but perhaps not so capable of dealing 
with terrorist finance, a safe haven for terrorism and other actions against 
terrorism.  I've been listening to the film you were showing about the 
definition and the background to 1373 but the Counter Terrorism Committee 
is there not to define terrorism but to upgrade the capability of states 
to deal with it when they find it.

HUMPHRYS:                    I take that point but 
very difficult to wage war against something which is what this is about 
after all, we want to kill off terrorism, very difficult to do that unless 
we can define it.  Let me ask you what your definition of terrorism is.

GREENSTOCK:                It doesn't really matter what 
my definition is but I would call it the indiscriminate use of violence, 
particularly against civilians in order to make a particular political 
point or to win a political argument and the General Assembly, the other 
part of the United Nations from the Security Council is working on that 
now.  So the Security Council is in harness with the General Assembly to 
deal with both sides of the question.

HUMPHRYS:                    Right, so on that definition 
organisations such a Hamas or Hezbollah are clearly terrorist and that 
means that countries like Syria and Iran that give them sucker and support 
will be required to stop supporting them and must..must I emphasise bring 
them to justice one way or the other.

GREENSTOCK:                I think it is more likely John, 
that we will home in on what is a terrorist act.  I think David Hannay 
was talking about this earlier in your programme.  If Hamas sends in people 
to kill indiscriminately then that's terrorism, then other people may have 
views on what they are doing if they attack a unit of the Israeli army. 
 It's the terrorist act we must deal with and the indiscriminate use of 
violence out of any particular military context that we have to deal with.

HUMPHRYS:                    And again on that basis, 
quite clearly, Hamas has been guilty of terrorist acts.  If you send a 
suicide bomber into a pizza parlour and blow up women and children, who 
are clearly innocent people non combative in every single sense of the 
word, that is a terrorist action isn't it, without any doubt.

GREENSTOCK:                Yes from time to time that 
may be so......

HUMPHRYS:                    May be so....
                        
GREENSTOCK:                My committee is not going to 
get into the business of judging who is a terrorist or whether something 
is a terrorist act.  My job is a much longer term one, to make sure that 
every state is capable of suppressing terrorism as a network, as a scourge 
on the world and to make sure that finance does not get through to terrorists.

HUMPHRYS:                    Yeah,  but we've got 
an enormous problem here though haven't we because if we can't define, 
if we're not defining terrorism and we're saying, well all right, let's 
take a particular act and look at that maybe, if you have a situation where 
a particular country harbours a group of terrorists and does not regard 
them as terrorists, therefore don't accept any sort of definition.  I was 
talking just this week to the Syrian Ambassador about that bombing of the 
pizza parlour, he regarded that, not as an act of terrorism, but as something 
that could be justified.  Now, if we cannot even agree that something like 
that obviously cannot be justified then the whole point of 1373 or anything 
else the United Nations might do, is completely negated isn't it, they 
have...if they are going to stop it happening, they have first to accept 
that it is wrong, if they do not accept that it is wrong, clearly they 
are not going to bother stop it happening.

GREENSTOCK:                I think we need to get this 
in proportion. What the committee is going to do is upgrade the capability 
of states to deal with the massive amount of potential terrorism there 
is out there. When it comes to some individual cases which are highly politically 
sensitive or very contentious in a particular region, then the Security 
Council as a whole will have to deal with that, or other aspects of international 
law will have to deal with that. But now that...

HUMPHRYS:                    ...I'm sorry, I was just 
going to follow up that point if I may, sorry to interrupt you there, but 
what if they, the states themselves, do not want to deal with the perpetrators 
of such actions?

GREENSTOCK:                Then those particular cases 
will become isolated from the general potential of terrorist cells to grow 
and plan things like the eleventh of September. There are two different 
categories of cases. The ability of something like Al-Qaeda, to grow and 
plan and do something out of the blue, and the act of violence within a 
particular political context, like the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, which 
has to be dealt with directly by other means, and my committee is not going 
to get into the business of the latter category of acts.

HUMPHRYS:                    So in other words, countries 
like Syria and Iran, and various others on the list that the United States 
produced at the beginning of this, seven countries, they don't have to 
comply?

GREENSTOCK:                No, that's not true. They will 
have to pass laws to suppress the financing of terrorism, to deny safe 
haven for terrorists. What you're talking about is the application of those 
laws, and their law enforcement agencies in particular cases, and that 
won't directly be for my Committee. It may come to the Security Council, 
it may come to other negotiating machinery, but it won't come to my Committee.

HUMPHRYS:                    But you're surely not 
saying, that it's fine and dandy if they pass a law, and then utterly ignore 
the law. I mean they could pass a law next Thursday week and say, we don't 
like terrorists and we won't help them, but then they can carry on precisely 
the way they have been going for as long as they have been doing it, and 
that's all right? I mean, doesn't that bring the United Nations into the 
worst possible disrepute.

GREENSTOCK:                No of course I'm not saying 
it's fine and dandy. It's thoroughly reprehensible. But the machinery for 
dealing with it will also have to take account of the very delicate political 
context within which that is happening and deal with it more directly through 
other Security Council action. But those cases will be isolated from the 
growth of terrorist networks which can use indiscriminate violence to make 
political points or to try and change the world in other areas and we are 
narrowing the difficult cases down to something we'll have to deal with 
directly.

HUMPHRYS:                    Well, deal with directly 
how? I mean, if it is as you say, you acknowledge that it is reprehensible, 
some people would look for a much more powerful word than that, but if 
it is reprehensible, what sort of sanctions, any sanctions, are any sanctions 
going to be taken against such countries, and by whom in this case?

GREENSTOCK:                I don't think sanctions are 
actually going to come into it from the Security Council, these cases are 
too serious.

HUMPHRYS:                    ...I mean sanctions in 
the very broader sense, I mean, sorry, forgive me for not being more clear 
about that, I mean sanctions in the very broader sense, I don't mean necessarily 
sanctions as we understand them, but in the very broader sense, what sort 
of action should be taken against such countries?

GREENSTOCK:                Then the action that will have 
to be taken will be in a political and sometimes a negotiating context 
which will be absolutely particular to that context. We've had a lot of 
violence on the West Bank and Gaza in recent days, and there was a Security 
Council statement about that. But the business of stopping that violence 
has to be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians, probably 
through the Americans and other direct negotiators who are on the ground 
doing exactly that. The action under thirteen seventy-three will be much 
broader, much longer term and much more geared to legislation, executive 
action, the judging of performance of particular states who perhaps are 
not so willing to put that legislation into action, and then coming back 
to sanctions against those very few states if they are not prepared to 
do it.

HUMPHRYS:                    So to that extent the 
United Nations doesn't really, if I understand you correctly, have a role 
in tackling terrorism. You talk about establishing this broad framework 
which I understand, over a long period of time, and ultimately it might 
help to isolate certain countries, but in the short to medium term, the 
UN doesn't have a role, effectively?

GREENSTOCK:                John, the UN is not a law enforcement 
agency. It doesn't have armies, it doesn't have agencies to act against 
terrorism. That has to be done by governments, by member states and they 
act in particular circumstances. What the UN has done with thirteen-seventy-three 
is to raise the whole standard of counter-terrorism action and we have 
now got to make sure that governments enact that in a way which is much 
more effective than before. That's the role of the UN.

HUMPHRYS:                    So the United Nations, 
the United States, could look at those countries that failed to comply 
with thirteen-seventy-three, and use the fact that they have not complied 
as justification for itself, the American government taking action, military 
action perhaps against them?

GREENSTOCK:                No, not unless that action 
is covered under the Charter, or by Security Council Resolution specifically 
authorising that action. They have to be quite careful to take action within 
international law, as they've done in Afghanistan under Article fifty-one 
of the Charter on Self-Defence...

HUMPHRYS:                    ...which remains of course, 
so therefore they could, sorry to rush you a little bit here, but Article 
fifty-one stands clearly, so therefore they could take the America, a particular 
country such as Syria's refusal to do what it ought to do under this particular 
Resolution, thirteen-seventy-three, say they haven't complied, we will 
take action against them using fifty-one, using Article fifty-one?

GREENSTOCK:                No, because it would have to 
be, I mean it's possible if the act of terrorism was about to take place 
was clearly directed against the United States, that would be understandable. 
But if they were trying to clean up a terrorist cell somewhere else, and 
that action about to happen wasn't going to happen against the United States, 
they couldn't take action without specific Security Council authorisation.

HUMPHRYS:                    Sir Jeremy Greenstock, 
thanks very much indeed.