BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) – The British and Irish prime ministers unveiled a sweeping new Northern Ireland peace plan Wednesday that offered solutions to issues – particularly Irish Republican Army disarmament – that have bedeviled negotiations for a decade. The leader’s optimism was offset, however, by statements from the two key parties in the conflict – the British Protestants of the Democratic Unionists, and the Irish Catholics of Sinn Fein – that they could not fully support the plan.
Each blamed the other for being unreasonable on the key stumbling block: whether the IRA should allow disarmament officials to photograph the destruction of the outlawed group’s remaining weapons stockpiles. Sinn Fein said the existence of such photographs would humiliate the IRA after decades of armed struggle.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, appeared to side with Protestant demands for photos and held out hope that the argument could be solved quickly so the wider plan still could be put into effect this month.
“What we’ve achieved is remarkable but not yet complete,” Blair said at a joint news conference with Ahern in Belfast.
He noted Protestants had demanded photos of IRA disarmament up front, while the IRA-linked Sinn Fein called for none at all. The governments’ compromise called for the photos to be taken but withheld from publication until Northern Ireland’s legislature elects a power-sharing administration led jointly by the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein.
Power-sharing was at the heart of Northern Ireland’s Good Friday accord of 1998 but collapsed two years ago after a moderate-led coalition suffered a series of breakdowns over IRA activity. Also, the moderates were voted out last year, greatly complicating efforts to revive the arrangement.
Without visual proof of disarmament, Democratic Unionist leader Ian Paisley said Protestants could not support the revival of a combined Roman Catholic-Protestant administration. Nonetheless, the 23-page document published Wednesday offered a catalog of diplomatic advances achieved during the past year’s negotiations.
The plan sought the IRA’s full disarmament by Dec. 31, followed by the convening of the Northern Ireland legislature in January. Lawmakers would elect an administration, jointly led by the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein, by March.
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