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Date Posted: 07:27:48 08/09/05 Tue GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: Blair resumes Northern Ireland diplomacy (Hartford Courant)

http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-northern-ireland,0,4273031.story

Blair Resumes Northern Ireland Diplomacy

By ED JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer

August 4 2005, 3:52 PM EDT

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair called Thursday on the Irish Republican Army to fulfill its week-old peace declaration, and urged Northern Ireland's political rivals to commit themselves to revive the province's power-sharing government.
Blair held talks with Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionists, and an hour later with Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party, and his deputy, Martin McGuinness.
A Catholic-Protestant coalition in Northern Ireland led by moderates fell apart in 2002 after suffering repeated breakdowns over IRA activities. Since then, voters have switched majority support to the Democratic Unionist Party, which represents most of the province's British Protestant majority, and Sinn Fein, which represents most Catholics.
Blair is hoping to persuade the Democratic Unionists to form a power-sharing administration with Sinn Fein. The two parties have effective veto power over any revival of power-sharing.
Blair said all parties must be committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.
"You cannot have the institutions in Northern Ireland back up and running except on the basis that it is clear in word and in deed that exclusively peaceful means are the only way to achieve progress," Blair said at his Downing Street office.
He also defended steps Britain has taken to scale back its military presence in Northern Ireland following the IRA's pledge to end its armed campaign. On Monday, Britain published a plan for slashing its 11,000-strong garrison in Northern Ireland to 5,000 within the next two years.
Last week, the IRA declared its 1997 cease-fire would be permanent and it would disarm, and Blair said it was necessary 'to make sure that what has been said in theory is carried through in practice."
Following Thursday's talks, Paisley said his party would refuse to reopen negotiations on power-sharing until he had proof the IRA had fully disarmed and disbanded.
He warned Blair not to offer any more concessions to the IRA and Sinn Fein, otherwise he would delay negotiations further.
"There will be no discussions about devolved government until these matters are settled," Paisley said.
About an hour later, Adams, McGuinness and other party officials went into Downing Street. Blair and Adams were filmed walking down a corridor and posed for photos -- a significant public step in their relationship. Since Blair ended a boycott on high-level public contact between his government and Sinn Fein in 1997, the government has kept the IRA-linked party at arms length because of political sensitivities and has previously not allowed such images of their meetings to be broadcast.
Blair did not shake Adams's hand; an official Blair-Adams handshake, considered a major symbolic point for future peacemaking, was not yet in the cards.
Adams dismissed Paisley's comments as "fairly predictable."
Adams said Paisley "has a choice to make. Either he join with us and everyone else in building this process, or he can stand aside." Adams added that the British and Irish governments "cannot allow the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) to delay, delay and delay again."
Blair said it was up to the parties how quickly power-sharing could be resumed and he said he was not going to impose any "arbitrary time limit."
* __
Associated Press writer Shawn Pogatchnik contributed to this report from Dublin.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press
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