‘The terrorists will not succeed’
The British prime minister was flanked by the heads of 12 other governments, the UN and European Commission as he delivered a joint statement declaring: “The terrorists will not succeed.”
He said: “We are united in our resolve to confront and defeat this terrorism that is not an attack on one nation but on all nations and on civilised people everywhere.”
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called the bombings “perfidious attacks.”
French President Jacques Chirac said: “This scorn for human life is something we must fight with ever greater firmness.”
All differences were put aside as the leaders assembled in the Barony room of the Gleneagles Hotel, the summit venue in Scotland. US president George Bush stood at the right shoulder of the prime minister, while Mr Chirac, the leading critic of war in Iraq, stood at the left.
Mr Bush later pledged that those responsible for the London bombings would be brought to justice.
President Bush, in a series of secure video conferences with Washington, directed US homeland and national security officials to take extra precautions. The United States later raised its terror alert to orange, or high, for the nation’s mass transit systems.
Mr Blair returned last night to the G8 summit and all those attending were determined that it would continue in his absence. Top civil servant Sir Michael Jay chaired the scheduled discussions on climate change until Foreign Secretary Jack Straw arrived.
Mr Blair’s official spokesman said that work in building a consensus had been going well before he departed and success could be expected if discussions continued in a similar nature.
A statement on the issue expected yesterday evening will now come today, along with another on Mr Blair’s twin aim of African development.
The prime minister will sum up the talks at a press conference before returning to London in the afternoon.
The day started at Gleneagles in Perthshire on an optimistic note, with the British and US leaders appearing to pave the way for an agreement on global warming.
In bright sunshine, Mr Blair and Mr Bush enjoyed breakfast together on the hotel terrace before facing the media. Within minutes of the joint press conference ending the first reports of explosions in London were reaching the summit.
Mr Blair was meeting Chinese President Hu Jintao and Scotland’s First Minister Jack McConnell as the first sketchy accounts emerged.
It was only when those talks were over that Mr Blair was informed and began to prepare his first televised statement, delivered at noon.
An hour later Mr Blair delivered an extraordinary joint statement in a room containing a dozen fellow government leaders and Kofi Annan from the United Nations and Jose Manuel Barroso of the European Commission.
Alongside him from the G8 were not only Presidents Bush and Chirac, but also Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, Canada’s Paul Martin, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder and Japan’s Junichiro Koizumi.
The leaders from the five emerging nations were the Chinese president and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, India’s Manmohan Singh and Mexico’s Vicente Fox.
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