British Prime Minister Tony Blair battled on Thursday to break a deadlock threatening to scupper crunch talks on reviving self-government in Northern Ireland before a deadline next month.
The stand-off pitted the long-troubled province’s Catholic-backed Republican group Sinn Fein against firebrand Protestant leader Ian Paisley, who has long refused to share power with Sinn Fein and its former military wing, the IRA.
Faced with the stalemate at closed-door talks in Scotland, Blair warned the main parties he may impose a take-it-or-leave it deal if they fail to reach accord themselves before lunchtime on Friday, when the talks are due to end.
”I don’t want to appear a bully or intimidate,” said Blair’s official spokesperson at the talks near St Andrews. But he added: ”What there won’t be is another round of talks … This is not a staging point. This is it.”
The talks — co-hosted by Blair and Irish premier Bertie Ahern — bring together leaders from both sides of the province: Republicans who want to unite with Ireland, and Unionists demanding to stay part of the United Kingdom.
Britain, which suspended a power-sharing government based at Stormont Castle outside Belfast four years ago, insists that failure to strike a deal before a November 24 deadline will see it closed indefinitely.
The talks started in a good mood Wednesday, but by the middle of the day Thursday the mood was clearly cooler.
Two main sticking points have emerged: the refusal by Paisley’s Democratic Unionists to share power with Sinn Fein, and Sinn Fein’s refusal to back an historically Protestant-dominated police force.
London believes the two parties are prepared to make compromise — but the key question is timing, Blair’s spokesperson said. ”They don’t want the situation where one crosses the river while the other one gets cold feet,” he said.
And he warned that if there is no deal by Friday lunchtime Blair will ”call” a deal, setting out a take-it-or-leave-it timetable for its implementation, to meet a November 24 deadline.
”The parties then would have to decide their response to that.”
Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness emerged from the talks putting the blame firmly on Paisley.
”I’d go into government tomorrow morning with Ian Paisley, but Ian Paisley has to decide whether or not this is the time for him to do a deal. Really that is the big question to be answered,” McGuinness told reporters.
He also defended Sinn Fein’s rejection of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), saying: ”I see the PSNI as a British-controlled policing organisation and I am not going to ask young republicans to join such a force.”
But Paisley, known for his fire-and-brimstone rhetoric, much of it aimed at Catholics, insisted that Sinn Fein cannot enter government without giving ground on the police issue.
”Our position is very very simple: We believe that Sinn Fein-IRA have got to deliver … Those who want to serve in a government of a democracy must totally and absolutely support the police on every level,” he said.
”Until they do the democratic thing there can be no democratic government. And I will not sit in a non-democratic government,” he said. — AFP
