Adams warns DUP over Assembly revival plans
The Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists must not be allowed to dictate the pace of efforts to revive the Northern Ireland Assembly, the British and Irish governments were told today.
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said after a meeting with the Parades Commission in Belfast city centre about the marching season that the DUP would have to engage with his party if there was to be progress in the political process.
The West Belfast MP also dismissed reports that the DUP want the IRA to demonstrate over a six-month period their peaceful intentions before they would consider sharing power with Sinn Féin.
“I have made it very clear that the terms as we know it that the DUP have publicly expressed are not acceptable,” Mr Adams said.
“How could they be acceptable?
“We have just refreshed our mandate. We respect the DUP’s mandate.
“These ideas of being decontaminated or being tested or being verified, those have long since passed.
“What we need to do is to crunch in a comprehensive way all of the elements involved and then implement what we agree in a practical and an urgent and an expeditious way as is possible.”
Northern Ireland’s politicians have been told by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to expect an intensive push to restore devolution in the autumn.
However if the talks fail in September to revive the Stormont Assembly, both governments have warned that they may have to look at the continuation of Assembly members’ salaries and at other ways to secure agreement between the parties.
Mr Adams, who earlier today met US President George W Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, criticised the failure of the DUP to get right down to the process of securing a deal during the summer.
“The DUP at this moment are on their holidays,” the Sinn Féin leader said.
“That is where the DUP are.
“Will there be a deal done eventually with the DUP? Will they talk to us eventually?
“Of course they will but they cannot be allowed by the governments to do it on their time frame or on their timescale.”
