February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Behind-the-scenes talks are continuing between the Northern parties and the British and Irish governments, but it is thought that little in the way of political progress will be made before a British general election, which is expected to be called for the spring.
Republicans are playing down the prospect of moves by the IRA without an agreed plan to restore power sharing. The DUP, meanwhile, is expected to stick to its hard-line position on the Assembly and the North-South bodies.
The DUP leader, the Rev. Ian Paisley, will meet with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in Dublin on Thursday. Paisley’s meeting is seen as significant as it will have been the first time he has headed up official DUP business in the Republic.
Ahern is hoping to extract an assurance from Paisley that the DUP will work the power-sharing executive with Sinn Fein if the IRA were to decommission and disband.
The two governments believe that the Leeds Castle talks effectively wound up the issue of IRA weapons and that the only remaining roadblock is the DUP’s position on the political institutions.
Sinn Fein welcomed the move by Paisley but raised questions about the party’s intentions, considering it still refuses to talk directly to republicans.
“In the wake of the Assembly election last year, the DUP promised a new, more confident brand of unionism,” Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said. “So far we have seen little evidence of this new-found confidence. The DUP are continuing to refuse to engage with Sinn Fein directly. If we have learned anything from the development of this peace process over the past 10 years, it is that dialogue is the key to resolving problems and moving forward.”
McLaughlin was echoing a call made by Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble on Monday. Trimble, speaking at the British Labor party’s annual conference, said: “The DUP should test the word of republicans, and to do that it has to sit down face to face and get them to be crystal clear on what they plan to do.”
Last week’s talks collapsed as the SDLP and Sinn Fein rejected DUP proposals on the Northern Assembly. The DUP is demanding that power-sharing cabinet members be held accountable to the Assembly. Nationalists have rejected the proposal as an attempt to reinstate majority unionist rule.
The Stormont meetings were designed to sustain the momentum that seemingly had been built up during talks at Leeds Castle in Kent the previous weekend. The Leeds summit broke up without agreement, but government sources insisted that progress could be made quickly.
The removal of IRA weapons had been billed as the core impediment to restored government. However, republicans appeared to offer an end to the IRA in exchange for full implementation of the Good Friday agreement. The talks failed after the DUP refused to waver over its demands for a new Assembly.
It is thought unlikely that the IRA will move on the weapons issue in the near future, given the DUP’s hard-line position.
However, some observers have suggested that British Prime Minister Tony Blair may be anxious to secure a “side deal” with republicans if the DUP is unwilling to budge.
Blair has endured a torrid time in recent months. The Labor party conference in Brighton this week has been overshadowed by anti-war protests and the ongoing kidnapping saga in Iraq.
Blair may be anxious, say political sources, to “bag” the IRA offer on decommissioning and move forward without the DUP. Such a strategy would be fraught with risk but could see the British government deliver on pledges to demilitarize the North, allow so-called “on-the-runs” to return home, and devolve policing in return for a historic move from the IRA.
Sinn Fein has said it will seek to secure such measures from the British government regardless of the DUP’s position. Senior republicans have called on Blair to dangle the possibility of some form of joint authority in front of unionist eyes in order to coax them into government.
They point out that the DUP is in a strong position to dictate the pace of political progress. Nationalists fear that a substantial section of the party prefers direct rule from London to power sharing.
The DUP is well equipped to ride out another lengthy political impasse, according to unionist sources. They believe it has put off the day when it has to make the difficult decisions regarding Sinn Fein and can now tell its voters that it rejected an inadequate deal on IRA weapons.
DUP figures make no secret of the fact that they would love to wipe out the Ulster Unionists at next year’s general election. Having to cut a deal with the IRA at this stage could leave the DUP open to inevitable claims that it has “sold out.”