McGuinness: Peace process in 'deepening crisis'
Martin McGuinness has said the statement by the IRA that it was withdrawing its commitment to decommission weapons is further evidence of a "deepening crisis" in the peace process.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The IRA statement is obviously a direct consequence of the retrograde stance of the two governments, and I think it is evidence of a deepening crisis.
“The real difficulty here is that the two governments have opted for confrontation. I think they are engaging in sterile blame game politics without any regard for the consequences. Their approach has effectively scuttled the enormous work done in persuading the IRA to undertake the unprecedented initiatives, one of which was agreeing to put their arms beyond use within a few weeks.
“I think that the IRA have had a good heart for this process. I think in their statement they have made it quite clear that they are very supportive of a viable peace process.
“But what we are dealing with here is the fall-out from the refusal of Ian Paisley to go into power-sharing institutions, all-Ireland institutions, in December last year.
“As politicians, our job is to sort all of this out and I think there is now a mighty responsibility on the two prime ministers, the two governments and indeed the rest of us to do whatever we can to ensure that we don’t see all of the good work of the last 10 years effectively undermined.
“I’m not going to condemn the IRA. I don’t think that would be a very productive contribution to this peace process. It would be a huge mistake for us to leave a political vacuum.
“There are forces out there within our society who are hostile to the work that Gerry Adams and I have done over the course of the last 10 years and I am working to prevent these people in any way gaining from the vacuum that we find ourselves in at the moment.”
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