Ambassador Shaikh Abdul-Aziz of Bahrain

any other encouragement or interference that the hardliners and the protest movement have been getting. We are very shocked that the golden opportunity to have a dialogue and talk about the future with the Crown Prince was not acted upon. This sounds very suspicious.

HSNW: Currently there are still a fair amount of checkpoints and military vehicles on the ground, do you have any insight into when these vehicles will be pulled back?

AA: This state of national safety, which is a step under martial law, has a period of three months before it can be extended. For it to be extended, it needs to be approved by parliament. So for now, we could sit out the three month period, but it could happen that we do not sit out the three month period. I am hoping that we do not have to sit out the whole three month period because of the military presence on the street. We have to look at other ways of preserving law and order without their presence.

HSNW: Certainly none of the parties involved want to see an increase in violence, but if unrest does continue, what measures would the government be willing to take?

AADuring this period, demonstrations and protests are not allowed to take place. If they do, then they are going to be contained. Now, at least, we are not seeing any containment in numbers that are worrisome. But the solution is not to carry on always trying to contain these demonstrations.

On average, before all of these problems started in the last couple of years, we were averaging about 200 demonstrations a year about the rise of petrol, the rise of unemployment, or unfairness. There was always a demonstration, nearly every day about something – that is fine. It is not as if we do not allow demonstrations. We are used to it, but we just cannot have it now. Let us go back to full normalcy, then hopefully any demonstration will not have to be contained.

HSNW: Bahrain occupies a difficult position, situated between two very large regional powers. How do you strike a balance between the competing interests of these two powers?

AA: If you are talking about Saudi Arabia and Iran as the two powers, you ask a very valuable question because Bahrain’s location is strategic. Bahrain’s make up of Sunnis and Shias is strategic. So everything is there so that if something went wrong it would be a disaster.

A few weeks ago, I think we came to the brink of a civil war – an abyss that we have never reached before. We do not want Bahrain to be used as a place for a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. I do not want to single out Saudi Arabia because it would be a conflict between Iran and the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council], but we cannot use Bahrain as that place.

So we have to do all that we can to unify the communities and prevent external forces and major figureheads whether they are theocratic, political, or government from interfering in our business. We have to prevent by all means any kind of conflict in Bahrain.