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Sinn Fein back in N. Ireland talks Monday
March 22, 1998
Web posted at: 9:56 p.m. EDT (2156 GMT)BELFAST, Northern Ireland (CNN) -- Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, will return Monday to all-party peace talks designed to produce a political settlement to end Northern Ireland's three decades of sectarian strife.
"We intend to go into the talks to be positive, to be constructive and to try to achieve agreement," Martin McGuinness, chief negotiator for Sinn Fein, told Sky Television.
Sinn Fein is returning after a being tossed out of the talks in February as punishment for IRA violence. The negotiators could have returned March 9, but delayed until meetings with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London on March 12 and U.S. President Bill Clinton in Washington last Monday.
CNN's Jim Clancy reports on Sinn Fein's return to the talks
2 minute, 38 second VXtreme video
As the talks resume Monday in Belfast, the British and Irish governments are pushing to meet a self-imposed deadline of Easter for an agreement, which would then be submitted to voters in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic in May.
Blair recently described a settlement as "agonizingly close." But leaders of both pro-British Protestant and Catholic Irish nationalist groups are seeking to downplay prospects for any quick agreement.
At issue in Northern Ireland peace talks: The British and Irish governments, which co-sponsor the Northern Ireland peace talks, are proposing that a coalition of Catholics and Protestants govern the province, now ruled by Britain. The coalition would cooperate with the Irish Republic through a cross-border council. McGuinness said Blair's assessment was "devoid of reality." And David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists, the largest Protestant party in the British-controlled province, said he was "not comfortable with the hype that's going on. I think that's unwise."
"We have been close for a long time ... but there are still serious issues to be dealt with that are not agreed. And to hype up the matter is giving rise to expectations that may be dashed," Trimble told the BBC.
A chief sticking point will be how Northern Ireland, which has a Protestant majority and is now under British control, is governed in the future.
Trimble The British and Irish governments, co-sponsors of the talks, have proposed that Catholics and Protestants govern Northern Ireland in coalition, with a system of checks to ensure that neither block can dominate the other. They have also proposed that this new government have closer ties with the majority Catholic Irish Republic, which occupies the rest of the Irish island.
Trimble says Protestants are "very dubious" of that arrangement because they fear the aim is to "take us over and make us do something we don't want to do." And Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams says any settlement will have to lead to the eventual union of Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic.
"Nationalists in the north are not a minority in someone else's country. We are Irish citizens, living in our own country," Adams said. "Nationalists want to move towards Irish unity and see this process as a bridge in that direction."
But Trimble told the BBC that Sinn Fein negotiators were making "proposals about a united Ireland when everybody else is talking about the future administration of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom."
"These people have not come to terms with reality," he said.
Eames Any lasting agreement will also have to deal with the fate of hundreds of Protestant and Catholic militants being held in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison for murders, bombings and other violence. How that is handled may determine just how much peace Northern Ireland will get.
Though Catholics and Protestants alike hope for peace, there are fears on both sides that what comes out of the negotiations won't be to their liking.
"There's tremendous hope in the air after 30 years of violence that at last, something is maybe under way," says Archbishop Robin Eames, the Catholic primate of Ireland. "There's also a deep suspicion that we've been here before. And psychologically, people are just saying, 'What's new? What can be new? We've tried this.'
"And yet, overwhelmingly, people want peace," says Eames. "They want an end to it."
Correspondent Jim Clancy and Reuters contributed to this report.
Message board:
Related stories:
- Violence erupts before N. Ireland talks resume - March 22, 1998
- Sinn Fein: No decision yet on rejoining peace talks - March 12, 1998
- Blair condemns N. Ireland killings - March 4, 1998
- 2 killed in shooting at Catholic-owned bar in N. Ireland - March 3, 1998
Related sites:
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
- Sinn Fein Home Page
- Ulster Democratic Unionist Party - Home Page
- The Irish Republican Army - and the armed struggle in Irish politics
- The Irish News and Belfast Morning News- Northern Ireland's largest morning newspaper
- Northern Ireland Public Service Web Home Page
- Britain in the USA: Northern Ireland: Frameworks for the Future
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