welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. there are plenty of reasons to fear that 2024 could be defined by escalating conflict. it is tempting to give up on the institutions and individuals focused on conflict resolution, on reconciliation between enemies. but would that be premature? well, my guest isjose ramos—horta, president of timor—leste, leader of a successful liberation struggle and advocate for international peace and justice. are there lessons for the world to learn from his extraordinary life?

presidentjose ramos—horta, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. it is a great pleasure to have you in the studio. i think it's fair to say you've given most of your life to the struggle for freedom in timor—leste, east timor, as we used to know it, and you have served as its president, not just once, but twice. you decided to come back in 2022 to seek the presidency again. was that a tough decision, to come back? yes. on a personal basis, yes. it was not in my plan, but then mr xanana gusmao, now prime minister,

whom i deeply respect, he asked me to run again... ..to put timor—leste back on the map of the world, because it was neglected, forgotten for a few years, because we've been living in peace and tranquillity, so we did not constitute news. but at the same time, with so many conflicts in the world, we were running the risk of being forgotten. so... and then our asean accession. so i was asked to serve, to be the visible face of the campaign for our asean accession. mm. now, you have already mentioned your domestic intentions and also your efforts to get your country into asean, but i actually want to begin with your international advocacy for peace and reconciliation, because your own story, which some of our viewers and listeners may not

know, is extraordinary. you went into exile as the indonesians occupied timor—leste in 1975. for two and a half decades, you were outside the country, and then, when the un took over and there was finally that move to independence in the early 20005, you came back, but you'd lost...a huge number of family and friends in the meantime, and you made that decision not to seek vengeance. why? well, that is precisely... ..the wisest, the most humane, the most pragmatic decision to make, and that is... ..not to forget the past. you know, no—one can legislate someone to forget about the past. least of all you. imean, you... to be specific...

yes. ..you lost four siblings? yes, two... ..two brothers and one sister. the fourth, he died of an illness. maybe he could have been saved, but... ..on paper, he died of illness, a prolonged illness. but hardly any timorese families didn't lose anyone. but xanana gusmao, myself and all the others, we decided to move forward, heal the wounds, reconcile the nation, because we need peace and tranquility. and also reaching out to indonesia. and the indonesians showed their statesmanship... ..above...being above pettiness of retaliation, because we parted ways with indonesia. they could have said, "since you want to part ways, you are on your own, we don't want anything again to do with you." no, quite the contrary. imean, it... ..it is an extraordinary thing you have done, because it goes beyond just not

seeking vengeance, you have actually gone very much further than that. in 2022, you actually chose to honour a senior indonesian general, abdullah mahmud hendropriyono, who had been one of the key figures in the brutal indonesian military occupation. and let us not forget... yes. ..during that occupation, it is believed 200,000 east timorese were killed. yeah. you gave this man an honour. yeah. but people didn't know, don't know, and they don't have to know, it's obvious, hendropriyono played a very important role in the beginning of our independence, to talk down armed militias, to avoid destabilising timor—leste. so he and president susilo bambang yudhoyono, president megawati sukarnoputri, they contributed a lot to keep our borders safe.

i suppose the question, mr president, is whether you are taking your people with you, with this sort of extreme form of reconciliation. here is what sisto dos santos of the civil society group hak said in response to you honouring the indonesian general. he said, "what our president did is not representative of the families of victims. the president has promoted impunity." now, that's quite a charge. what's your response? well. . .we accept... i accept and understand the views. we need... we need to have people who disagree. but i don't have to listen to every civil society institution. my ear�*s on the ground, i leave to the feelings of the vast majority of the people, and what they want the most is

reconciliation with indonesia. we are free, we are independent. the greatest act of justice is not revenge, it's not prosecuting people. the greatest act of justice is that the whole international community, including indonesia, corrected the wrongs of the past by recognising timor—leste�*s independence. mm. so australia, us, every other country in the world that collaborated with the suharto regime, for us, they are forgiven. but doesn't accountability and justice matter, not just in the national, but the international context? i mean, we have institutions now like the international criminal court and the international court ofjustice. they've been in the news in recent days, of course... yeah. ..because of the case brought by south africa against israel, the accusation being genocide. but one can look at a whole raft of conflicts, not just gaza, but one could look at ukraine, one could look at sudan, myanmar, one could go

back to the former yugoslavia. the feeling in the international community is that accounting for what happened, to prosecute those responsible for the most egregious crimes, matters. and you're suggesting, for you, it isn't the priority. it isn't the priority, because i would say, a, xanana gusmao himself said, and i say, "those who didn't commit any crime may cast the first stone." and he asked, "if we are going to try anyone, where do we start?" we start with ourselves, or we go only for those from outside, or those who are against us. so we decided for the difficult path, but we learned also from mandela. mandela spent 27 years in prison, south africa could have gone into racial war, but mandela, in his

greatness, greatness with desmond tutu, they decided to push for national reconciliation. and that's what is keeping south africa at peace today. they have a different set of problems, but the white versus black war has not happened, as they most feared in the past. in 1996, long before you were able to return to timor—leste, you won the nobel peace prize, co—won the nobel peace prize, for your efforts to relieve oppression from your fellow countrymen. you have since, i think it's fair to say, become one of the world's great and good. you've been employed by the united nations as a special envoy, you advised on peacekeeping missions around the world, and you've visited many of the world's greatest trouble spots, including the middle east... yes. ..several times. do you think that your approach

to conflict resolution has relevance to the terrible conflict we see today? yes, absolutely, and the key question here is leadership. probably the tragic situation in the middle east, israel, palestine, and that neither side has had a mahatma gandhi, a mandela. for peace to prevail over hatred, over violence, you have to have courageous leaders. there were some, in egypt with anwar sadat, with menachem begin, with yitzhak rabin, and they paid a price, like martin luther king paid a price, like mahatma gandhi paid a price. well, peacemakers pay a price. but the key to wars are leaders. the key to end the wars are leaders. so the problem in palestine, israel, is, well, look at the israeli side and look

at the palestinian side... ..and i classify it, sometimes, as a problem, a question, of missing opportunities, missed opportunities. on our side, every time there was a small window of opportunity, even if that opportunity looked like an absurdity, too much concessions on our side, we grabbed that opportunity. but many people listening to this, and i'm thinking particularly of people perhaps in the middle east or in ukraine, doesn't there come a point where the blood spilled, the hate that has been fuelled, reaches a point where your message, which frankly sounds like a very idealistic message... i'm looking at your own website, which says, "in victory, be magnanimous, never seek to humiliate the adversary. if he's on his knees, hold his hands..." i mean, these are idealistic sentiments, but isn't

there a point where conflict goes so deep that message gets lost? that's true, but there is no way around it. seldom in history, wars are won in the battlefield, seldom. except world war ii with nazi germany and japan, for instance. in the case of ukraine, i do not think there is going to be a military victory by either side. solution is dialogue. and eventually they will engage in dialogue, particularly when the two sides are exhausted. so i ask, "why not engage in dialogue now to avoid further destruction, further violence?" and when you engage in dialogue and negotiations, you have to have the courage to consider concessions on both sides. you take that message to conflict zones around the world, and you carry the weight of a former winner of the nobel peace prize, but i'm intrigued to see that

when it comes to domestic issues and the challenges facing timor—leste, which, let's face it, is one of the poorest countries in the world, you are less the idealist and more the pragmatist. and you seem to say to your own people, "look, we will do what we can to maintain warm relations with china, with australia, with the united states and of course our big neighbour, indonesia. we won't stand on principle, we'll simply be pragmatic." not. . . not entirely correct. timor—leste, we are on our way to tranquility. we have zero political violence, we have zero ethnic or religious—based tension, not violence, even tensions we don't have among the religious communities. we don't have organised crime, we have no debt to china. there's so much talk about,

you know, the chinese debt trap, we have zero debt to china, no loans from china. 0ur external debt is only 13% of our gdp. we owe only some money to adb, asian development bank, to world bank and ifc. and when the war in ukraine happened, when putin launched the aggression, we, timor—leste, one of the poorest countries in the world, not only condemned, not only voted for the resolution in the un general assembly, but we provided almost $2 million for humanitarian programmes for ukrainian refugees. yeah, well, you've been very careful. you, ithink... this is a direct quote from you not so long ago. you said, "we will maintain an equal distance from all the major powers." but as you look at the world today, with an ever—widening rift, it seems, between the so—called global north and the global south, do you think it is possible to maintain that position?

well, of course it's difficult, next to impossible, to be neutral between an aggressor who violates the un charter and international law and invades another one, in this case, russia in ukraine. but at the same time, we should refrain from demonising putin, from demonising even the russians... ..as we should refrain from demonising israelis because of what's happening in gaza. i want to come back, because we've talked plenty about israel—palestine and your international advocacy, but i do want to come back close to home. you say, "equal distance from all the great powers," i wonder whether it comes... ..when it comes to practical issues, like seeking massive investment for the oil and gas production that you want to undertake in the so—called greater sunrise oil and gas field off your coastline, whether it's going to be possible to maintain friendships across the piece.

if you go with the chinese to help you, that will upset the australians, if you go with the australians, they want you to take the pipeline into northern australia. your own political party colleagues say, "no, we have to have the processing of the gas on our own land." you've got all sorts of choices to make which...either upset beijing or upset australia. laughs. you have done an incredible research for this interview. we would be happy to have billions of dollars from the united states, billions of dollars from china. well, the us should be the last person, the last country, to worry about china, because china is the biggest buyer of us debt. until recently, $3 trillion of china's money was in the us. the australians, they rented the port of darwin, a very strategic port,

they leased it out to china for 100 years. laughs. we haven't leased anything to china, we don't have any loan from china, but we have a great relationship with the united states, with australia... your prime minister, though, was recently in beijing... yes. ..you said, in support of a closer relationship with china, you said china has hardly ever invaded anyone, and that china ever invading taiwan was unthinkable. the australians then said, "goodness me, it looks like timor—leste is getting close to china, even in terms of a security relationship," and that... no. ..made the australians very upset. no. it comes back to this thing, in today's world, it's very difficult... yeah. ..to maintain friendships across this political divide. yeah. i don't mind at all the australian media speculation about how

we are becoming a chinese... i don't mind, because by doing that, we get more attention from australia and the united states. so we benefit from that. but the reality, the reality is, a, most of all our security cooperation partnership on military is with australia and the distant portugal, our police cooperation is with the australian federal police. we don't have any military cooperation with china. we have military cooperation, police cooperation, with indonesia, a bit with south korea, and with japan. and china is a global economic financial power, so is the us. they are disputing maybe the number one position, and we simply get along with both. doesn't mean we don't have more affinities with the us. well, because we are a democracy, a very dynamic multiparty democracy,

we have one of the freest media in the world... ..and so we have some differences with china, but we don't lecture china on how they conduct their political system. leave aside geopolitics, there's another element to your current dilemmas, and that is climate change, and what your decision to push ahead with this massive oil and gas exploration and production offshore will mean for your own country. because on the one hand, you say, you know, the western world should pay us vast amounts of money not to explore oil and gas, and at the same time, your own government is absolutely determined to push ahead with production. yeah. 0ur c02 contribution to pollution in the atmosphere is 0.0000...

you can add many zeros from here, this studio, all the way to the street, that is our c02 responsibility. and, er... but... yeah, the problem is that the climate change that is already baked in is going to affect your country very badly. according to the asian development bank, climate change could cost as much as 10% of timor—leste�*s annual gdp over the next 70 years. yeah. this is a grave problem, and it seems to me your government is going to exacerbate it by pushing ahead with a major oil and gas production project. but, but we are already, in parallel to developing the nonrenewable energy, in this particular case, gas, which we need to finance our own development, we are already embarking on renewable energy, solar energy projects. 0ne project is starting soon, more than $100 million investment.

so... but you... i'm sure, mr president, you know the phrase "the oil curse". yes. would you recognise that it has been something of a curse for timor—leste? your current oil and gas reserves are running out... yeah. ..your economy is in terrible shape, poverty is at 45%... yeah. ..oil and gas haven't, and probably will never, deliver prosperity for your country. the so—called oil curse, someone concocted the phrase and everybody repeats it. the so—called oil curse is what has given us billions of dollars over the years, enabling us to invest in roads, in bridges, in universities that... 20 years ago, we had electricity coverage only in the capital, now in 96.1% of the territory. but with respect, you still have by far the lowest gdp in southeast asia,

i talked about a poverty rate of 45%, the world bank says over 30% of your population is illiterate, some people say that you're in danger of becoming a failed, if not failing, state. well... i mean, we've talked about your long career, you have to take some responsibility for that, don't you? yeah, well, itake any responsibility. i don't take credit for anything good, i take credit, i take responsibility, for anything that goes wrong, i have no problem with that. but the reality is, in 2002, at independence, we had only 20 medical doctors, today we have 1,200 medical doctors. in 2002, we had one single university, today we have 16 universities. so all these studies, they look only at the negative, they never show the tremendous progress we have made. today, we have hundreds of university graduates who are working in the country. we created more employment in the country.

you are known for your efforts to achieve peace and conflict resolution, in your own country and around the world. you also have said that you want to be the president for the poor and eradicate poverty. which, as you look back on a long career, has been harder? the battle against ingrained conflict, or poverty? well, for me, an absolute moral and ethical challenge, and it's abominable, i agree, that in 22 years of independence with the money that we have, we have not eliminated extreme poverty and child—stunting malnutrition. the next five, ten years, we have to do that, eliminate extreme poverty, stunting, and child malnutrition, and get everybody into school. that is my commitment in these last few years of my journey towards the sunset. stephen chuckles.

well, president horta, we hope you have many more years to come, but i thank you for being on hardtalk. thanks. thank you so much. thank you. hello there. monday was a day of significant contrasts across the country. mild, dry, but windy across england and wales. pretty wet across northern and central scotland. in fact, highlands seeing over five inches of rain since sunday. and this very slow weather front will gradually drift its way steadily southwards through the day on tuesday. behind it, introducing colder air all the way down from the arctic.

that could have an impact later in the week. but tuesday will start off with rain sinking south out of northern ireland into northern england, gradually pushing its way down into wales and the midlands. ahead of it, it stays blustery, cloudy but mild. behind it, quite a clearance, crisp with some sunshine coming through. a few scattered showers turning wintry with elevation. 1—5 celsius generally in scotland, 7—9 celsius under the rain, but still double digits, 12 or13 celsius ahead of it. now, that frontal system will continue to bring some rain steadily south and then pushing that colder arctic air pretty much right across the country. the exception is the far southwest. but wednesday will certainly be a brighter day. more sunshine coming through. largely dry with a few scattered showers continuing to be wintry, with elevation in scotland. here we'll likely see temperatures 2—4 celsius, but generally around 2—9 celsius. milder in the southwest, and that weather front then tries to squeeze back north into that colder air. and that is going to

potentially have quite an impact, as it bumps into the colder air on the leading edge, we could see some snow for a time. favoured spots at the moment look likely to be across wales, the midlands and stretching up into the north of england. to the south of that, it will always stay as rain. but the met office has issued an early yellow warning — be aware that there could be some impacts with some snow through the midlands, north wales and northern england. two centimetres widely at lower levels, maybe a little more with any elevation. so we'll need to keep an eye on that on thursday. it looks likely that scotland will stay in the colder, brighter, sunnier conditions, and to the south we're likely to continue to see rain. it may well stay relatively mild down to the south as we move into the weekend, but still noticeably colder the further north you go. keep watching the forecast. take care.

live from london, this is bbc news. king charles has begun regular treatments and postponed public duties as buckingham palace adjusts to the king's cancer diagnosis. there's been a global response to the cancer diagnosis across the commonwealth and from us presidentjoe biden. one year after turkey's deadliest earthquake that killed more than 53,000 people, aid agencies say substantial rebuilding still needs to be done. hello, i'm sally bundock. king charles has been diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing treatment. buckingham palace made the announcement yesterday evening.

they've said it's not prostate cancer, but was discovered