Hopes rise for Provo concession

“I think that Thursday’s engagement between the taoiseach and the British prime minister is probably the most important that we have seen in the last 20 years,” McGuinness said Tuesday.
Adams asserted that power to move the process forward “lay firmly with the British government.” He said that the British should move forward on policing, demilitarization and other issues.
Though Sinn Fein has called speculation that the IRA is about to make a major concession “unhelpful,” it would not be the first time that republican leaders have scorned stories of an upcoming move, even as they got ready to make it. Speculation has focused on the possibility that the IRA will disarm, and stand down its volunteers or make a statement expressing its willingness to disband.
Intense talks continued behind the scenes on other key issues, such as policing and demilitarization and the status of “on the run” terrorist or OTRs. Last week, Trimble said the IRA had to engage in “genuine acts of completion” to give unionists the confidence to return to power sharing with Sinn Fein. Informed observers believe it is unlikely that the Sinn Fein leaders would build up expectations of a break through prior to a meeting with Blair and then fail to deliver. Blair is known to be increasingly impatient with the inch-at-a-time form of progress and is looking for a major development to which he promised the government would respond.
Meanwhile, the Ulster Unionist Party distanced itself further from political efforts to restore devolution on Monday by boycotting multi-party talks at Stormont on the implementation of the Good Friday agreement. This means the weeklong round of talks will now have no unionist or loyalist representation.
The UUP leader, David Trimble, argued that the discussion of “secondary issues” like human rights and equality at the talks would only serve as a “smokescreen to divert attention from the key issue of paramilitarism.”
Trimble also objected to the presence of the Republic’s Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Tom Kitt, at a meeting on matters relating solely to Northern Ireland.
(Jack Holland contributed to this story.)