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Peace talks for N.Ireland head towards a likely deal

Ireland Peace

New draft agreement from Mitchell is tabled

April 10, 1998
Web posted at: 2:51 a.m. EDT (0651 GMT)

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (CNN) -- Morning in Northern Ireland has brought with it clear signs a peace deal to end three decades of sectarian conflcit in the troubled province could shortly be at hand.

An apparent breakthrough in the talks came some seven hours after a deadline of Thursday midnight, and while politicians representing the divided province's pro-British Protestant majority said they are optimistic, by most accounts the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, Sinn Fein, remains disappointed and hesitant.

Negotiators in Belfast express their views of the N.Irleand peace process
Lord Alderdice of the cross-community Alliance Party talks about what he percieves as improvements in the most recent draft of the peace agreement.
icon AIFF or WAV
(448 K / 35 sec. audio)
Sinn Fein representative Mitchel McLaughlin discusses his party's position going into a new round of talks.
icon AIFF or WAV
(352 K / 30 sec. audio)
Social and Democratic Labor Party leader John Hume, a moderate unionist, discusses the position of his party.
icon AIFF or WAV
(320 K / 25 sec. audio)

The Ulster Unionists, the province's biggest pro-British party, have been deadlocked with nationalist parties who want much closer political links with Dublin to reflect their Irish identity.

George Mitchell, the former U.S. senator who has chaired 22 months of gruelling talks, prepared the final draft of a new peace agreement, which has now been presented to all eight political parties negotiating at the talks in Stormont Castle near Belfast.

All sides will be given an hour or two to look over the document which is a synthesis of all the new ammendments made by various parties in the last few hours.

If all the major parties agree to sign the document it is expected there will be a plenary session of the talks' participants. If a majority approve the deal, there will then likely be a signing ceremony at Stormont.

Sources say confirmation by nearly all parties is expected but not Sinn Fein, since the agreement probably contains too many elements of continuing British government involvement in Northern Ireland and Unionist legislative power.

If Sinn Fein does not sign the deal they may not reject it outright. The party does not have enough electoral power in Northern Ireland or in the talks to kill the vote so it may try to present the decision not to sign as a "win-win' situation. Sinn Fein would be able to tell party members at their annual meeting in a few weeks that the deal was rejected as "too Unionist" but at the same time important concessions were won, anyway.

If an agreement is reached and signed, the document must still be approved by the membership of all the parties that signed it and then by seperate referenda in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic next month.

 
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