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Tue 8 Apr, 2003 10:18 am
CNN reported that Tony Blair wanted the talks in Belfast - BBB
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London Times - April 08, 2003
Irish republicans accuse Bush of using visit to justify war
By Rosemary Bennett and David Lister in Belfast
PRESIDENT Bush arrived in Belfast last night to face rare criticism from Irish republicans, who accused him of using the Northern Ireland peace process to prop up support for war in Iraq.
On the eve of crucial talks between Mr Bush and Northern Ireland's main party leaders, Gerry Adams called the President's decision to hold a war summit with Tony Blair in the Province "insensitive".
"We would be wrong not to point it out . . . the insensitivity of having a war summit which then discusses peace in the margins, of having a war summit which appears to be trying to use the Irish process as a stage or as a prop," the Sinn Fein leader said.
Staunchly opposed to the war in Iraq but eager to stay on good terms with the White House, Sinn Fein has been placed in an awkward position by Mr Bush's visit. The party is attempting to maintain its opposition to military action without attacking the President personally.
Senior Sinn Fein figures joined anti-war protesters who marched towards Hillsborough Castle where the war summit took place amid tight security. About four thousand protesters carrying anti-war placards made their way to the outskirts of Hillsborough, where they were addressed by Mitchel McLaughlin, the Sinn Fein chairman. They jeered and whistled as the President's helicopter flew overhead on the way to the castle.
Mr Bush and Mr Blair walked in the gardens for half an hour before holding "informal and freewheeling" talks over dinner, where they discussed the unexpectedly rapid progress into Baghdad.
Thursday is the fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and Mr Blair will return to Belfast to publish a joint blueprint with Bertie Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister, to try to revive the Stormont Assembly. Mr Blair hopes that the President's personal involvement, the first time he has become significantly engaged in the issue, will encourage the parties to swing behind his new proposals on security, policing, political institutions and equality.
However, the anti-war protesters who marched towards Hillsborough were less than convinced about Mr Bush's sincerity in travelling to Northern Ireland. While the majority listened to anti-war speeches, a tense stand-off took place between up to 1,000 demonstrators and riot police blocking the country road into the village near Belfast. In farcical scenes, two demonstrators at the front of the crowd ?- one banging a pot with a stick, the other beating a frying pan with a metal lid ?- advanced to within inches of the police.
The protesters, singing "This is what Democracy Sounds like" and "Shame, Shame, Shame", carried Palestine flags and anti-war placards bearing the messages "Osama Bin Bush", "USA ?- Unsanctioned State Aggression" and "Boycott Bush, War Criminal". As the protest threatened to turn violent, a group of up to 40 jumped over a hedge into a neighbouring field guarded by a line of riot police with alsatian dogs.
The television footage of the protests did not provide the images that President Bush and Mr Blair hoped to see accompany their talks on how to apply the lessons from the Ulster peace process to the Middle East. Mr Bush is due to publish the international "road map" to help to resolve the Israel-Palestine dispute.
Israel has already lodged its protest over 15 aspects of the road map with the White House, including a demand to halt settlement activity.
However, far from taking Israel's protests as a bad sign, British officials said that it showed that Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, knew Mr Bush was serious about the plan. Progress in the wider Middle East would help Mr Blair to heal the rift that has opened up with the Labour Party over war in Iraq.
Detailed talks on the proposed interim administration in Iraq, which will take over from US military rule, will take place today when Jack Straw and Colin Powell will join the two leaders, along with Condoleezza Rice, who flew in from Moscow last night for the dinner.
Deal fails as IRA refuses to say war is over
April 11, 2003 - London Times
Deal fails as IRA refuses to say war is over
By David Lister and Philip Webster
Sinn Fein's Bairbre de Brun and Gerry Adams. The party said some issues in the new blueprint "needed to be addressed"
TONY BLAIR and Bertie Ahern called for "clarity" from the IRA last night after it scuppered hopes of an historic breakthrough in the Northern Ireland peace process.
The embarrassed leaders admitted their disappointment at hastily arranged Downing Street talks after the IRA refused to play its part in a carefully choreographed sequence that included the visit of President Bush to Belfast this week.
The two were forced to call off a return visit to Belfast yesterday when the IRA statement that was expected to accompany their blueprint for restoring devolved government failed to come up to scratch.
Against all hopes it did not give the clear statement that the IRA's war with Britain was over. Mr Blair decided against going to Belfast and Mr Ahern flew to London instead.
"There are outstanding issues," Mr Blair said after talks in Downing Street. "The two Governments are in complete agreement, however, about the right way forward.
"We have to make sure that there is total clarity and certainty in respect of the outworkings of the Good Friday agreement. That has always been the case. We will be in contact with the parties overnight. We have to make sure that people understand the time is urgent and I hope even at this late stage any of the difficulties can be ironed out and dealt with."
The IRA still has five days to deliver a form of words and action strong enough to convince Mr Blair and David Trimble's Ulster Unionists that it is turning its back on violence. If it does not deliver by Tuesday, Mr Blair will almost certainly have to postpone elections to the Stormont Assembly scheduled for May 29. Stormont has been suspended since October after the exposure of an alleged IRA spy ring.
London and Dublin dismissed as inadequate a draft IRA statement, shown to Mr Ahern, in which the IRA failed to commit itself to end all paramilitary activity. The Times has been told that the statement did not promise further IRA disarmament and said merely that it would re-engage with General John de Chastelain's independent decommissioning body. The two Governments' blueprint, which has not been published, proposes a significant reduction in troop numbers in Northern Ireland, an amnesty for on-the-run republican terrorists, an independent body to monitor future breaches of the Good Friday agreement, and a commitment to devolve policing and justice powers to Stormont. Officials said that Sinn Fein's reservations centred on plans to "name and shame" future transgressors of the agreement and said the party wanted an undertaking from Unionists that they would not walk away from power-sharing. They also said it wanted speedier moves to wind down the British military presence and a clearer time-scale for devolving policing. Mitchel McLaughlin, the Sinn Fein chairman, said: "These are issues we feel needed to be addressed."
In an attempt to persuade Sinn Fein to agree to a deal, Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, travelled to Belfast on Wednesday. After late-night telephone conversations between Sinn Fein and officials in London and Dublin, civil servants decided yesterday that the talks "had gone backwards".
One official said: "I think there is a general sense that maybe Sinn Fein were holding out for a bit too much this time and they overplayed their hand."
A senior Unionist said that the proposed IRA statement "didn't even get into the ballpark". He added: "Here we had a situation where two Prime Ministers and an American President were all here on Tuesday and saying how marvellous everything was in Northern Ireland and it has all gone belly up."
The timetable
Unless a deal is agreed by Tuesday, elections to the Stormont Assembly on May 29 will almost certainly be postponed. Before David Trimble can agree to return to government with Sinn Fein, his Ulster Unionist Party must hold a meeting of its 860-strong ruling council to endorse such a move.
For such a meeting to take place before Stormont is formally dissolved on April 28, a tight timetable would have to be met.
April 15: Deadline for Ulster Unionist Party officers to decide in principle whether to call a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council.
April 19: By this date letters must be sent out to council members, giving them seven days' notice of a meeting.
April 26: Proposed date for council meeting to decide whether to return to government with republicans.
April 28: Stormont Assembly formally dissolved.
May 29: Elections to the Stormont Assembly.
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