 It is time for us to start this important plenary session, first thing Friday morning, and as you can see somewhere wherever it might be, this is about securing stability in the Middle East and North Africa. I'm very fortunate to have with me here, and for you, for the WEF audience, the two principals in this region, where the Syria war, the fight against ISIS, directly impacts them, and they are both directly involved. Prime Minister Haida al-Abadi of Iraq and Prime Minister Tammam Saleem of Lebanon, also known as formerly the president of the Council of Ministers of Lebanon. So I'm going to welcome you now formally because this is also, thank you very much for joining our program. So Prime Minister Haida al-Abadi and Prime Minister Tammam Salam, thank you very much for being here. Can I first ask you, we note that there is a lectern here. This signifies the fact that the next speaker, shortly after this whole panel is over, is Secretary of State John Kerry, and I know you've been seeing him and you've been talking, and Secretary Kerry as well as Secretary Ashton Carter have asked your fellow Arab nations to do more to help in the fight against ISIS and all the consequences. Do you need more help, Prime Minister Abadi, from the Gulf states, from more Arab states? In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, I thank you very much for this introduction. I think we are having this war on Iraqiland, of course it's in Syria as well, against Daesh and we are winning this war. We have kicked Daesh out of Ramadi. It's not only Ramadi, the city proper is complete area outside Ramadi, which to be honest with you, some areas were never under the control of Iraqi security forces for a very long time, even before Daesh rolled into Iraq. Now it's been liberated, Daesh being pushed back. Daesh is almost on the retreat, it's collapsing. But somebody is sending a lifeline to them, just after Ramadi's sectarianism as a very powerful weapon is being used by all regional players just to further their own interests, but they're using all weapons available to them. Iraq just happened to be on the fault line there. We are fighting together. Now local police in Al-Ambar is holding the ground at the moment. They are locals from Al-Ambar itself. They're fighting together with our CTS anti-terrorist squad, with our own army, with our own military. They are fighting together. Now we have reduced sectarians in Iraq to the minimum, but I can find now messages are coming across from the region, from all these media organs, trying to encourage sectarianism. This is costing us lives in Iraq at the moment. It's giving a lifeline to Daesh, to recruit more people from the region. Most of the people who are fighting in Iraq are very hardcore terrorists and not Iraqis. Iraqis usually just flee away. They don't have the ideology to fight with Daesh, but mostly the others who come from outside Iraq are hardcore. They suicide bombers, they kill a lot of civilians, and they're costing us lives. So I think the region can play a major role in supporting us in our fight against Daesh by controlling the... Well, I'm not saying control the truth, by spreading the truth. At the moment, they're not spreading the truth. What about actual material help, humanitarian or military help? Well, that has been very little, to be honest with you, especially with our fiscal problem last year and this year, as you join us. All prices has plummeted. Before my government was formed, the all-priced bear barrel was over $100 bear barrel. At the moment, we are selling it yesterday, $22 bear barrel. If you take the cost of producing one barrel, it will only be left us with $13 bear barrel. That's a huge reduction. I have to sustain the war. I have to sustain the economy with all other expenditure. It's tough. Now, with the liberation of Ramadi, which has been the infrastructure, being damaged by Daesh, by the war, we have to stabilize the area with the support. We haven't been receiving, to be honest with you, any support apart from Kuwait, who's allocated $200 million US dollars to help our restructure these areas. Thank you very much for that. But we expect much more from the others. And from your perspective, Prime Minister Salam, you're also a frontline state when it comes to the war in Syria. And you have a quarter of your population are Syrian refugees. Are you getting enough help from your Arab neighbors in terms of humanitarian necessity? And what about your daily skirmishes that don't get reported, but with Daesh along the border area? How destabilizing is that? Well, it certainly is destabilizing, not only for Lebanon, but also for the region. And whenever this situation is discussed, followed up, everybody goes immediately to the violence, to the extremism, to the terrorism. But, and they start gauging the matters according to who won here, who lost there, what arms were deployed there, what is the necessary plan on the other side. I believe a serious approach should tackle not only this violent situation, but also why extremism? Why terrorism is prevailing? Why it's ongoing? Why it's not being able to be stopped and to be diminished? Well, there must be some things in the origins of the matters in the region that have created the situation. And a major element for me is not enough support for moderation and moderates in the region. And as long as this is not given what it requires of support, as long as we are going to allow to see more extremism and more violence, you cannot cure this violence and this extremism by violence and extremism also, or by harsh military airstrikes that only destroy and damage, but don't really eradicate the whole idea behind extremists and terrorists. This is all happening in the context of deep sectarianism, extremism, polarization that is potentially about to get worse. Do you think Iran and Saudi Arabia will get a handle on their adversarial and very tense relationship right now? Given the major Sunni power is Saudi Arabia, the major Shiite power is Iran, and how is that sectarianism playing out on the ground? First to you, Prime Minister of Iraq, because we've seen it flare in Iraq pretty much ever since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Well, it's very unfortunate. I remember in my studies in Iraq, we never used to differentiate my friend, whether he's a Sunni or whether he's a Shi'a. But now, of course, everybody talking about this issue. I think is, to be fair, I think some policies of the previous bath regime has probably ignited the situation, and the whole thing has exploded out of proportion after the invasion of 2003. But our friends in the region have not been helpful. I mean, they are competing for influence. They are competing for supremacy. And for that, I think they're using all weapons that are available, as I said, including sectarianism. Look what happened in Syria. I mean, everybody was claiming they want to liberate the Syrians. They want to help the Syrians. They ended up ruining Syria. Syria has 11 now 11 million refugees, some of them internally, some of them outside the country. The whole infrastructure of the country has been ruined. We have a lost generation without school. This is a breeding ground for terrorism. Now, this can't continue. I can see there are differences of what elements they choose among the opposition in Syria, but we need a political solution in Syria. Everybody must be helpful in this. I hope it will go forward, but I can see everybody's playing their cards close to their chest. They want to achieve supremacy in this area or that area. But I tell everybody, don't underestimate the danger of terrorism. We have managed in Iraq to stop the onslaught of Daesh from Al-Ambar, Iraqi desert towards the Saudi border, towards Kuwait. But if they play the card strongly, if they continue on inflaming sectarianism, don't underestimate the power of terrorism. Daesh can again roll in there and I tell them there is no uniform army who can stop them. These are hardcore terrorists. They have the wrong ideology. They can attract young people. They are doing it. We shouldn't tell them. At the moment, we're supposed to be on the same boat, but in reality we are not. I want to come back to the specific fight in Iraq against Daesh and pick up on some of these points. But I want to ask you to follow up regarding the, you know, the polarization as Prime Minister Abadi said and the chance for peace talks. Because, you know, Mr. Abadi, you're also talking about your ally Iran, who is most deeply involved in the sectarian fight in Syria, backing President Assad, along with Hezbollah, which is in your country. And of course, Russia says it's not backing anybody, but Russia's air power is deemed to have given President Assad over the last three and a half months a lot more chips to take with him to these peace talks. So how do you see the future of these peace talks? We don't know whether they're going to start on Monday or not. But key players are sitting right in your own country. Yes, it's true. One has to admit that there is certainly a regional aspect to the affair, but also an international one. Yes, the Russian-American efforts that are being deployed to find the solution are necessary and need to go on. And we need to build hopes on them. And also regional relations, which are tense nowadays, especially between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi Arabia rightly considers itself in the Arab world as a main leader that has to play its role and try to mend up things between the Arabs themselves to set things in order. Iran, on the other hand, has been for some time, for many years, intervening in the region, in the Arab world in particular. And this is where the conflict lies between the Iranians and the Saudis. And the Saudis, when you tell them what's coming up, they tell you, sorry, we're not intervening in Iran. We're not meddling with the Iranian affairs. Why should Iranians meddle with our Arab affairs? And this complicates the situation. And yes, we are all worried about sectarian situations. Already, we have passed through confessional ones and already disruption took place in Syria and other countries regarding the Christian presence in the region, which we all strongly hold to. And as you know, sometime even in Egypt, this situation was about to flare up to give immediate negative effects. We hope we surpass the confessional one to an extent, but still we have to do big effort to maintain this rich image, this rich coexistence in the region, Muslim Christian and also sectarian Shi'ite Sunni. And we must all help in this. It's not going to be easy. Yes, his accent was referring to how much things are escalating in what direction. Yes, they will escalate more and more. Many will thrive on this sectarian affair. This brings me back again to say, if you allow me, yes, we need some moderate and some moderation actions in the region. We should support that. And there is why I, on every occasion, try to bring up this subject and say, yes, in Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement will surely engage peace in the region, will surely engage moderation and moderates, and will be the long-term solution for extremists and terrorists. You may very well be right, but I think none of us, the irony is not lost on many of us that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict barely comes up these days. Everybody, obviously, is obsessed with ISIS for all sorts of good reasons. And it is something that there's not a huge amount of public work on at the moment. You talk about interfering in regional affairs. I mean, I'm sure many people here have read all the articles that have come out, also trying to hold Saudi Arabia to account for the exportation of a very, very virulent form of extremist Sunni, hardline extremism, Wahhabism, Salafism, whatever you might want to call it. And this, obviously, is playing out, obviously, in Syria, but also in Iraq. It was interesting to read, and I wonder if you can tell me a little bit more about this, that Shia militias were kept deliberately out of the fight in Ramadi in order not to create this them and us situation amongst the Sunni tribes and the population that you need to get on side, and in order to make sure that you don't have a repeat of what happened in Tikrit, where Shia militias basically caused death and destruction and pillaging and plunder after liberating Tikrit from ISIS? Well, Tikrit was a very good example of liberating the city. I know some trouble happened 48 hours after the liberation, but now about 90% of the population of Tikrit are back. City is very much secure. Basic services has been retained in the city, not only Tikrit, even the surrounding area. So that's a sexist story there. But did you make an effort not to have a sectarian battle? Exactly. If you remember after Tikrit, immediately, I called upon all units outside our military to leave the city because of what happened, just to restore order, and we did restore order very quickly. In Ramadi in actual fact, we didn't need anybody else outside Ramadi. We have our military there. We have three divisions, army divisions. We have our specialized anti-terrorist force, which is the best in the region, who are fighting there. And we have the local police. We brought in the local police. We retrained them. I appointed a very good commander of the local police. And we have introduced our own PMF for the region, that public mobilization force for the locals in Al-Ambar. And this, they work together in harmony. If you remember three years ago, there were calls in Al-Ambar South calling on our own army to leave the area because they looked at this army as not national army. But at the moment, people are calling upon this army. They're fighting with this army. They're welcoming this army in Al-Ambar because they're considering it as a national army, defending the country. And they're very happy to work and fight under this army to liberate their areas. At the moment, if you look carefully, in Ramadi itself, we've liberated Ramadi within 10 days of liberating Ramadi. We pulled back our military units from the city and handed over to the local police, exactly like what happened in Tikrit. This is a story of success now, where the local see that they can run their own cities with the support of the federal government, of the central government. The central government is not there to take the city out of them. Is there to help them to rebuild their city? Is there to help them to regain the control of their city? And that is what we are doing there. This is very helpful. So I think the reason was we didn't need anybody else from outside the Lambar to fight for Lambar because the whole chemistry of Lambar has changed. If you look at the... The proof will be in whether the people come back. 200,000 civilians and citizens of Lambar, of Ramadi, rather. Exactly. The proof is there because we've seen the population who were inside the city when this military operation started, they moved across towards our military units rather than towards the other side of Daesh, which means they trust very much our military. Now, just to follow up on what you said, originally, we are winning. Daesh is losing. Yes, everybody wants to believe that and hope that. But they are recruiting. Even if they're losing some territory, the prime minister of Kurdistan told me that they are recruiting at a pace that they've never seen before. Daesh is recruiting tens of thousands of people as we speak right now, many more than last year. He also said, and as I repeat this, because obviously the Peshmerga, their forces are a very effective ground force against Daesh, but he says that the whole situation, the Iraqi army is not yet ready to take on Mosul, again, a city of a million people, a much more complicated situation where really the whole Daesh story started in your country in earnest. Do you agree with that timeline? When do you believe that the next round of pushing back Daesh will happen? I gave a pledge that 2016 we'll see the end of Daesh militarily in Iraq. But on the terrorist thing, this will continue, of course. That means all your cities will be liberated? Well, that's our pledge. I mean, Mosul? Yeah, our pledge this year. There are difficulties, I agree. And but we are, like we surprised, the world by liberating Aramadi, well, nobody thought we would or we can, but we did. And this is a heartland. I mean, Daesh was celebrating when they took back Aramadi. They considered this is a heartland of their own kingdom or a state, as they say. Now, of course, the last remaining one in Iraq is Mosul, Nainawa. Of course, there's a Raqqa in Syria as well, which ought to be taken back from them. But I think Mosul, because of this history, this is a very, there used to be a lot of kingdoms in Mosul controlling the whole areas. This is vital for Daesh and it's vital for us to take it back. And we can. We already have a plan now, how we take it back. And we will hope we will take it back. We only rely on our military, on our local units, which are there, and local police. This is a very good combination of forces from our experience. If they work together, the task will be much, much easier. It surprised everybody when we started our campaign after we circled Aramadi that not many terrorists of Daesh are there to fight. In actual fact, the main challenge is the explosive devices, thousands of them, which should be led by Daesh in the roads, in the schools, in the houses. That's where most of our casualties are. Not through direct fight against Daesh. I think Daesh is losing the momentum. The other issue is fighters. Most or majority of hardcore fighters in Iraq are non-Iraqis. They are from all over the world. And of course, Daesh is not being created in Iraq. It's being created in Syria. That's a big question that's got to be answered. How Daesh was allowed to build that strength in Syria and was enabled to cross the Iraqi border and occupy Iraqi cities and push civilians out as refugees and killing many others and destroying our own factor, that is a challenge for us. We have to regain these cities. But of course, Daesh is an ideology, as you said, is an ideology which is very dangerous. That ideology I think has been supported by some countries in the region. And certainly Western countries have decided strategically over the last five years of this war not to intervene to stop it militarily. And now some intervention against Daesh. But we're talking about the stability of this region. I'm going to come to you, Prime Minister Salam, because it also is not just about terrorism. That also feeds obviously off disillusion, disadvantage, disenfranchisement, and lack of economic opportunity. I mean, it is extraordinary that five years ago, this month, the Arab Spring was seen as a great, great hope for the whole world, not just your part of the world. And it's pretty much all collapsed. It's failed, the revolutions have failed, or they've degenerated into civil war. The one bright shining spot was Tunisia. Nobel Prize, democracy, some sort of stability, maybe. But right now, there are demonstrations in Tunisia about economic opportunity. How are you going to meet your responsibilities to your own people so that they can have dignity in their lives, so they can feed their wives and their children and their husbands, so they can actually have a chance at a decent life? We certainly, to start with, have to try to tackle the violence that's prevailing in a way to contain it and put an end to it. What about tackling the aspirations of the people? And allowing them for aspirations of the people. You need many economic development projects all over the region that require a lot of expenditure, that require a lot of funds, mainly away from what is being spent now in billions of dollars to contain this affair, to allow for those people to live in peace, to live in stability, to be productive, and to look forward for a better life. Unfortunately, in the turmoil that's governing the region for the time being, that is not being able to allow for this. How much responsibility, though, do you take as a leader? And I could ask the same question to Prime Minister Abadi or any Arab leader today. How much responsibility do you take for the well-being of your own people? We must take all the responsibility. And this responsibility was messed around with for many years in the past. That led to the uprising, that led to the Arab Spring. And, yes, it will go on. Will the people will go on pressuring us, pressuring all the responsibilities everywhere. And we're there to handle this. As best as we can. Again, here I say, yes, we need a breather. A breather might be of trying to dismantle this tension. And their international efforts are highly needed. If they were deployed a few years back, as they are now, I'm sure we would have been able to avoid much of the violence that is prevailing today. And Syria, in particular, if things were attended to four years ago, I'm sure we would not have reached where we have reached today. Now, his accent is outlaying the problems they're having in Iraq. Yes, but it's not only in Iraq, it's everywhere now in the region. Lebanon, we take our share. Worldwide, everybody is taking its share of this situation. So, yes, trying to put hope for the people and to look for stability, as I say again, for moderation, for the world to go through that, yes, some efforts have to be deployed by everybody to push for progressive developments, not necessarily for confrontational ones, as is the situation today. And more confrontation mean more destruction, mean more not allowing for stability in the region. We are out of time, but because this is about stability, I want to give you the last word, Prime Minister Al-Abadi, because your country is at the very heart of this. Final thoughts as we wrap up? Well, I think you just mentioned, in the last thing, welfare of the people. I think we have, this is a major issue. I take full responsibility for that, me and my government. Our people were demonstrating last summer, just asking for improvement on services and the political system. And there are certain things which have started the process of major reforms. Of course, we should be responsible for that. We may not be able to deliver now because of lack of resources, but at least we should do on the right track to provide this welfare for the people. Of course, at the time, I ordered my security not to work in harmony with the people. And while we, I mean, this is a success story. While every city in Iraq was demonstrating, asking for welfare, asking for services and we had having a war, we kept peace. Security forces were working with the people. And we ended up with the system reform. Of course, people may not be happy because they've asked me to dissolve parliament. I cannot, I don't have that power to dissolve parliament because the government is my product of political blocs inside parliament. So I cannot work against the system in essence. But I think we are looking forward for the next election. We have to provide that. I think this is the essence of the thing. Are all government in the region in the same track, on the same track, providing welfare for the people? Are they actually responsible in front of the people? I think some governments are not. They are shielding themselves from the people and they're intervening in other areas while shielding themselves because people are not having a say in their governments under the way they're running their government. I think that's a problem number one. Prime Minister Al-Abadi, Prime Minister Salam, thank you very much indeed for being here. Thank you. We're now going to have this panel which is going to build on this panel. If I might ask you to take your leave, you can either come and watch if you like or go and do your more important business. Thank you. Take care. Thank you. Another chair is coming in. Are we okay?