Blair holds talks with Paisley and Adams
Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley will today hold separate meetings with the prime minister to discuss the way forward for Northern Ireland.
Mr Paisley, the leader of the DUP, met with Peter Hain yesterday where he told the Northern Ireland secretary there was no role for Sinn Fein in power-sharing talks.
In the wake of the IRA’s statement vowing to give up the armed struggle, the British government has begun demilitarisation in the province and Mr Hain said he wants talks on restoring power-sharing to begin as soon as possible.
But yesterday Mr Paisley said he believed devolution would not return for a minimum of two years and insisted unionists “would not be duped” into joining talks.
The party believes beginning the normalisation process before the decommissioning of IRA weapons has been verified is premature, and is particularly incensed by the decision to dissolve the three Northern Ireland-based battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment.
And yesterday Mr Paisley presented Mr Hain with a list of penalties intended to disrupt the devolution talks planned for this autumn.
The aim of this was to “significantly prolong the assessment period that the DUP requires to satisfy itself of the IRA’s democratic credentials and its commitment to exclusively peaceful means”, a party statement said.
It added: “Let no one, not least the secretary of state or the prime minister be in any doubt, the prospects of a return to devolution have been damaged very considerably by the behaviour of the government.”
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Hain said the DUP leader had expressed himself “extremely strongly and critically” but insisted there would be no compromise on security.
“Nobody will take any risk with the security and safety of any individual citizen in Northern Ireland,” he told reporters, adding that under the normalisation plan published on Monday there would still be 5,000 British troops in the province to support police if required.
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has said he accepts the DUP will need some time to come to terms with the new IRA position, but urged him to return to the negotiating table.
Speaking this morning ahead of his meeting with Tony Blair, he said: “I’m prepared to give Ian Paisley a limited amount of space to get his head around all of this.
“But I think Mr Blair has to tell him, and tell him in a quiet and non-domineering way, that the old days are finished.”
