Trimble speaks to journalists before meeting with Blair VIDEO CNN's Rym Brahimi reports the IRA blames Britain for last week's failure to set up a power-sharing government (July 22) Windows Media 28K 80K MESSAGE BOARD: Peace in Northern Ireland

July 22, 1999
Web posted at: 1:04 p.m. EDT (1704 GMT)

In this story: IRA threat called 'unhelpful' RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

LONDON (CNN) -- A key Northern Ireland Protestant leader said Thursday he remained committed to a plan to end three decades of sectarian and political strife in Northern Ireland, even though the parties can't agree on how to implement it.

The Good Friday accord reached last year has been in jeopardy since David Trimble's pro-British Ulster Unionist Party refused last week to participate in a coalition government for the British province.

But Thursday, Trimble said he still wants to see the provisions of the peace deal take hold.

"We remain absolutely committed to the agreement. We want to see its implementation as soon as possible in all its aspects," Trimble said after meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The accord anticipated that Northern Ireland's four biggest parties would have formed a 12-member Cabinet by November 1998, and that the Irish Republican Army and outlawed pro-British paramilitary groups would completely disarm by May 2000.

The predominantly Catholic IRA supports uniting Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic.

Trimble and Blair met as former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell -- the mediator who helped broker last year's pact -- announced that his review of the agreement would formally start September 6. Mitchell was invited back to Northern Ireland to salvage the plan, a process he said might take a long time.

"The conflict lasted a long time. Establishing a durable peace and achieving genuine reconciliation will also take a long time, and I think it is going to take patience, determination and perseverance by all concerned," Mitchell said.

The fledgling Northern Ireland government fell apart amid mutual mistrust between mostly Catholic nationalists, who want a united Ireland, and Unionists, mostly Protestant advocates of remaining part of Britain.

IRA threat called 'unhelpful'

Trimble's unionists want a commitment from the paramilitary IRA to disarm before they will participate in a coalition government that includes the Sinn Fein party, the IRA's political wing. Blair was to meet with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams later Thursday.

But the IRA, in a harshly worded statement Wednesday, blamed Blair's government for tolerating what it called the Unionists' refusal to share power with Republicans.

"They have once again demonstrated a lack of political will to confront the Unionist veto," the IRA said.

Unionists denounced the statement as a veiled threat by the IRA to resume its guerrilla campaign against British rule.

"Violence or the threat of violence will not solve the problems of Northern Ireland. The only way forward to peace, political stability and reconciliation is through democratic means," Mitchell said.

British security sources said nothing in the statement suggests that the rebels planned to end their cease-fire.

But Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam said the IRA statement was unhelpful, and the Social Democratic and Labor Party, Northern Ireland's largest Catholic party, dismissed it as a repetition of "worn-out dogma."

Trimble said the standoff raises questions about whether the IRA and Sinn Fein leaders "are or ever were genuine about this process when they endorsed the agreement last year."

"They accepted an obligation to achieve total disarmament. They have done nothing about it," he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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