Ahern and Blair resume peace talks
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were today at the centre of a new round of crisis talks in a bid to clear the way for a restoration of the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland.
Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams are also heavily involved in the most intensive series of negotiations since the Good Friday Agreement was signed nearly five years ago.
Mr Blair delayed a return to Downing Street after talks finished at Hillsborough Castle in Co Down late last night.
All sides confirmed that progress had been made, but a number of outstanding issues still needed to be sorted out.
They included the IRA’s disarmament process and republican resistance to unionist demands for some sort of sanctions to be imposed if the IRA break their commitment to a future free of violence.
As the pro-Agreement parties studied a 28-page blueprint tabled by the Irish and British governments in an attempt to restore devolution in Northern Ireland, republicans were upbeat about the chances of success.
Sinn Fein’s West Tyrone MP Pat Doherty said that if as much progress was made today as yesterday the potential was there for a deal to be struck.
“We welcome the fact that both the Taoiseach and British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be back here tomorrow which will give us all a chance to refocus on the remaining work that has to be done in terms of policing, demilitarisation, criminal justice, human rights, the Equality Bill and the whole question of the institutions,” he said last night as he was leaving Hillsborough.
But earlier, Mr Trimble warned that the latest effort to rescue the peace process would fail if tough sanctions are not installed to guard against future IRA activity.
He insisted that the organisation’s commitment to ending its military campaign had to be monitored.
“The question of verification and sanctions is a deal breaker. There will not be any progress without it,” he said.
One strand emerging involved an independent monitoring body, made up of representatives from the Irish, British and US governments, to oversee paramilitary activity.
The document presented to the parties by Mr Ahern and Mr Blair aims to end the political stalemate and restoring the devolved institutions in time for the planned May 1 elections to the Stormont Assembly.
The package, split into five annexes, set out all the outstanding issues in the peace process. But Mr Blair’s official spokesman said: “It’s a work in progress, not a finished product.”
The power-sharing Assembly has been suspended since the discovery of a suspected IRA spy-ring at Stormont last October which left unionists bitterly opposed to going back into government with Sinn Fein.
Only a huge and public disarmament gesture backed by a declaration from the paramilitary organisation that its war is over will persuade them that republicans are genuinely committed to peace.
But before the IRA agree to effectively go out of business by agreeing to halt recruitment, purchasing guns and gathering intelligence, they want confirmation from Mr Blair about a major new programme of demilitarisation.
Mr Adams and Martin McGuinness sought promises that thousands of troops would be pulled out of Northern Ireland along with the dismantling of Army watchtowers in republican areas.
Calls for policing and criminal justice to be devolved to the Stormont Assembly, a pledge to allow on-the-run paramilitary prisoners to return and moves on equality and human rights were also among the main Sinn Fein demands.
