Reid ignites row with comments on IRA arms

By Anne Cadwallader

BELFAST — A row over IRA guns has broken out after Sinn Fein discovered that the British Northern secretary, John Reid, had accused the party in a U.S. newspaper interview of negotiating with "guns under the table."

Gerry Kelly of Sinn Fein has accused Reid of "deliberately trying to inflame tensions" after Reid claimed that the peace process would be finished unless the IRA decommissioned.

Speaking to the Boston Globe last week, Reid had said: "Protestants know that the negotiating partner still has a gun under the table. It is a large step forward that he is not shooting at you, but the next step is that he leaves the gun in the next room.

"We are now getting to the stage at which the fears of the unionists have to be addressed, as well as the fears of the nationalists."

Claiming that the IRA’s failure to decommission was the greater danger to the peace process, he said, "If I am trying to persuade the unionist community to push forward on greater civil and human rights for all, it is easier if they can see tangible benefit."

In an interview, which has ended his honeymoon period with Sinn Fein as Northern secretary, the former British minister of defense kept silent on the issue of policing, demilitarization and security force collusion with loyalist paramilitaries.

Sinn Fein’s leading negotiator, Gerry Kelly, slammed Reid’s comments.

"It is totally unhelpful to the peace process for John Reid to blame all of the problems on republican arms," Kelly said.

"There has been three months of intensive and orchestrated loyalist attacks on nationalists, yet John Reid is silent about this. His less than impartial, oversimplified and insulting language has done no one any good.

Nationalists, Kelly said, now have little confidence that the British government is prepared to live up to the commitments it has given over the last two years.

"Mr. Reid would be better served concentrating on living up to the obligations his government signed up to in the Good Friday agreement and reiterated again in May of last year," he said.

Meanwhile, more talks are expected soon between the IRA and the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning after the body made a positive report on its recent discussions with the IRA interlocutor on arms.

The IICD’s report to the British and Irish government said it considered the reengagement in good faith.

"We will build on it at future such meetings, which we expect will occur soon," the report said.

The report also confirmed more meetings with loyalist paramilitary groups, the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Freedom Fighters had taken place, but it added: "Both groups continue to affirm that they will not move on decommissioning before the IRA does so."

Hardline Ulster Unionists demanded increased sanctions against Sinn Fein’s two ministers on the power-sharing Executive at Stormont. The current sanctions, preventing the two Sinn Fein ministers attending all-Ireland ministerial meetings, have already been ruled unlawful.

Ulster Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson, said, "All we have had from the IRA so far are verbal statements, but that has not been backed up in any way by actions."