ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, let’s turn to the United States and insane, that’s the word President Obama has used to describe a loophole in American gun laws which means somebody who is not fit to fly, on the no-fly list, is still able to buy an assault weapon legally.  It’s in the wake of the shootings, the awful incident in San Bernardino last week in California which is being described as a terrorist incident with one of the attackers allegedly swearing allegiance to the so-called Islamic State or Daesh.   It comes of course as British planes have joined the US led air strikes in Syria.  I am joined now by the US Ambassador to the UK, Matthew Barzan, a very good morning to you Mr Ambassador.  It does seem that the two issues within the United States that are oft discussed, have come together in this, I suppose this awful confluence, terror and the availability of guns.  So much so that the President is going to speak to the nation from the Oval Office but people are saying is there anything he really can do about gun availability?

MATTHEW BARZUN: Well there are two things in that issue and I expect the President, I don't know exactly what he’s going to say tonight but what he has already said in the last few days is, look what we know, we don’t know every detail about this couple and the awful carnage that they did and why but we do know in our country it is too easy for people who want to inflict harm to get their hands on guns that can do great harm, as we’ve seen in San Bernardino but that is not the first time we have seen that kind of carnage.  So what are we as a country going to go do about that?  The other issue that you mentioned that relates to it is if it is true that this couple were radicalised, who radicalised them? Again lots of issues we don’t know but the spread of that kind of fanaticism is a major issue for our country, it’s a major issue for this country and the US are working on that together.

DM: There are parallels and huge differences, we have just had a former Home Office Minister on perhaps highlighting one of them, not directly but there has been an incident that I was describing in East London overnight and again investigations have to take place about whether, whatever the links with terror or not, but it was a knife attack, a man with a knife attacking people in a London Underground station and he was able to be tasered by the police there, tasered and captured to be questioned and certain things ascertained but if he had been carrying an automatic weapon there’s no way the police could have done that to him, could have captured him and he could have caused obviously a lot more injury and killings.

MATTHEW BARZUN: Yes and obviously our thoughts are with the victims of that attack and as we learn more.  Look, a tragedy is a tragedy, certainly in our country our struggle is around guns and our struggle is around how to keep that fanaticism and check that so that we don’t have more.  There are two issues going on there, again the gun thing here is so different than it is back home but one thing we do have in common is stopping the flow of fanaticism and that is something our two countries are working really closely on.  

DM: And we are leading then to the issue of how pleased is the United States about Britain joining in air strikes on Syria finally?   

MATTHEW BARZUN: Well we are and we welcome it and we welcome it as an extension of UK leadership that we’ve seen in this crisis from the very beginning, both on the military front but also to the point we were talking about earlier with its leadership stopping the flow of fanaticism, of funding, of foreign fighters, on all of these issues the US and the UK and our coalition of 65 partners are trying to do, to degrade and to defeat ISIL.   

DM: But one thing, and I know you listened to the debate in the House of Commons with great interest on Wednesday but one thing that the Prime Minister was tested on by all parties, by some MPs on his own benches, the assurances that people required, so many people that did in the end support air strikes, was that there is a post situation planning, the likes of which we didn’t see with your own country perhaps in Iraq, perhaps in Afghanistan and certainly in Libya.  From the United States perspective are there real efforts intellectual, diplomatic effort going into what happens to Syria should we be able to stop that civil war?

MATTHEW BARZUN: Absolutely.  The phrase that President Obama uses is we have hard earned humility.  Of all the lessons we’ve learned, you’ve listened some, there are many, we have learned those lessons and that is why we working so hard to get a political solution.  These things can get confused because you see the word Syria, you see the word air strike and it looks a lot like headlines two years’ ago but of course the facts are very different.  So here’s what we do now, there is not a military solution to the civil war and the conflict in Syria is a political solution which is why President Obama, Secretary Kerry and others have worked so hard to get 19 nations around the table in Vienna to all agree that there is a political solution.  Now how that political process in time might work, there are still differences but we are making progress on that.  That is what can lead to peace, stability and security for the people of Syria that they have been so awfully denied over these last four years.  Now while all of that goes on, you have got this threat from ISIL, this death cult.  You don’t sit at a negotiating table with those guys, you need to degrade and defeat them and air power is not a [solution?] but it is necessary in that effort and that’s why we welcome the UK ….

DM: Just very briefly on that, does the United States share the Prime Minister’s assessment that there are 70,000 moderate troops there ready to turn their guns on IS?  

MATTHEW BARZUN: Well one thing we’ve always said is that air strikes alone won’t do it because you do need support on the ground and admittedly, and we’ve always said this, it is much trickier on the Syrian side of the border, not to say it is easy in Iraq but you have the Iraq security forces who have …

DM: The Peshmerga, moderates.  

MATTHEW BARZUN: And other ones so we need to do that hard work. One thing that will critical to help in the ground effort is if we can get political stability in Syria through a political resolution to that civil war.  That will enable, you can imagine that you could get the Syrian institutions and the Syrian army united with the Free Syrian army and others.  I know that’s hard to imagine now but you could imagine that, then attacking a shared problem of ISIL because the other thing those 19 countries agree about is that ISIL is a terrible threat and needs to be degraded.  

DB: One of the things I wanted to talk to you about which symbolises the closeness of our two countries, you just announced last week a global entry programme for UK residents making it a lot easier for people to get into the United States if they pay.  

MATTHEW BARZUN: Well we have 125,000 UK citizens who travel to my country, the United States, four or more times a year and we just announced on Thursday that they are now eligible to apply for global entry which will let them skip the passport queue, skip the customs queue and the bonus, when they come back through JFK or Newark or Miami or wherever, they get the special TSA pre-check security line to come back so yes, this is good for academics, business people, culture, diplomats, entrepreneurs, everyone that makes this special relationship so strong, it will make their travel easier.  The other thing it does that isn’t as intuitive, it also makes us safer because the brave men and women on UK Border Force and their equivalent, Customs and Border Protection in the United States, they have got this double mission.  They have to encourage the flow of good people and good goods across our borders and they also have to stop the very few but very real bad guys and this programme helps them do both.  It speeds up the flow for obvious reasons we just talked about but it also lets them focus on folks who deserve more focus.  

DM: It must be a pretty comprehensive vetting progress though mustn’t it?    

MATTHEW BARZUN: It is, and you’ll see, those of your viewers who go on and apply for it, I mean it is a two step process, it takes time, you list every place you’ve lived, you come in and you do your biometrics, it is very rigorous, we take our security – as you do – very, very seriously and once we’ve done all that, then we can ease the travel there and again focus on areas that deserve more focus.

DM: Well it certainly addresses the moan I’ve heard in many US immigration queues which is why are they bothering with me, I’m no threat.  

MATTHEW BARZUN: Well that’s it and we think it’s a great practical and tactical demonstration of the special relationship because we encourage this flow of great people from the UK into the United States and back the other way.  

DB: Ambassador, great to see you, thank you very much indeed.  Matthew Barzan there, Ambassador to the United Kingdom.