Blair warns NI peace progress must be made
The Northern Ireland peace process will be “in difficulty” if the parties do not make real progress towards agreement by September, British prime minister Tony Blair warned today.
Mr Blair said he had set aside “significant” time in September to talk to the parties involved, but acknowledged that failure to reach agreement then would be a savage blow to remaining optimism that a settlement could be achieved.
In a strong signal to Sinn Féin, Mr Blair said that Northern Ireland was now “beyond the point of compromise” over paramilitarism, and it was vital that any party wanting to take part in democratic politics ended all links with violence.
But he also had a message for Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party, saying it was incumbent on all those involved in the peace process to sit down in government with those who have renounced violence.
Asked at his monthly press conference whether September was a deadline for agreement, Mr Blair responded: “There is no point being arbitrary about it, but unless we really do make progress in September, we are in difficulty.
“That is the reason why we have set aside a significant amount of time for this.”
Mr Blair added: “If I was to turn up at another one of our press conferences after a further meeting and say ‘We have had a very good discussion and we are going to carry on discussing it, but we haven’t agreed it yet’, I think even the most optimistic person would start to say it was never going to happen.”
