Republicans on verge of historic change - US envoy
Irish republicans are on the verge of an historic makeover, a senior US State Department official claimed tonight.
In a speech to the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York, US President George Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, said it was critical over the coming weeks that everybody worked to ensure republicans could follow through on commitments made at talks in Leeds Castle.
He also told an audience – which included Sinn Féin chairman Mitchel McLaughlin – that President Bush and his administration was committed to seeing the peace process through to its conclusion.
Ambassador Reiss said: “Perhaps most importantly, the talks at Leeds Castle demonstrated that the republican movement is now on the verge of an historic transformation.
“Ten years after the first IRA ceasefire, Irish republicans have indicated that they are willing to pursue their objective exclusively through the democratic process.
“In Sinn Féin parlance, the ballot box has displaced the Armalite.”.
Ambassador Reiss was commenting after a landmark meeting took place in Dublin between Democratic Unionist leader, the Reverend Ian Paisley and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
It was the first time the DUP leader had travelled to Dublin for political talks.
Afterwards he said it had been a good meeting but he stressed the need for the IRA to go out of business.
Hopes have been rising after the Leeds Castle talks in Kent two weeks ago that the IRA is poised to make a statement which will address unionist demands for the emptying of arms dumps and an end to all paramilitary activity.
However a deadlock in the negotiations over the future model of power sharing at Stormont has resulted in the IRA’s offer remaining a secret.
Mr Paisley said in Dublin tonight after his meeting with the Taoiseach and his new Foreign Affairs minister Dermot Ahern that his party still had no idea of whether a genuine offer had been made by the Provisionals to wind down their criminal and paramilitary activity.
The North Antrim MP, who was joined at the meeting by his deputy leader Peter Robinson, said: “There is no evidence to suggest there is any IRA offer on the table and we indicated to Mr Ahern that more work will be needed in this area.”
Ambassador Reiss claimed tonight that republicans had reached a turning point which he attributed to two factors.
The first, he claimed, was Sinn Féin’s electoral growth in Northern Ireland and the Republic.
But he also suggested that the international climate after the 9/11 attacks in the United States and the Madrid bombings had also had a profound effect on republicans, making it clear that no political movement in Western Europe could under any circumstances have any links to terrorism.
“As those who follow this process closely know, republicans thinking has been moving towards this point for some time but Leeds Castle will likely be remembered as the moment when this strategy was finally accepted as official policy,” Ambassador Reiss argued.
“It is critical that we work to ensure that the Republican Movement follows through on this commitment and that all the loyalists paramilitary groups follow the lead of the IRA.
“We must also make sure that the devolved institutions are restored in a stable manner that fully preserves power sharing – a fundamental principle of the (Good Friday) Agreement.”
