Assembly re-instated after turbulent 48 hours

Northern Ireland Assembly ministers returned to their posts on Monday following a 48-hour long suspension to give all the political parties time to reflect.

However, while Northern Ireland Secretary of State Dr John Reid urged the political parties to use the six-weeks gained by the temporary suspension to resolve the outstanding issues of decommissioning, policing and normalisation, the response on all side has been one of heightened tension.

Amid fears that the IRA may step away from the decommissioning offer tabled at the last minute to the de Chastelain commission, Republicans are furious about the suspension of the political institutions put in place by the Good Friday Agreement.

Unionists on the other hand are enraged by the nationalists’ stance which they see as doing nothing after being given two deadline extensions and three years in which to decommission. Economy Minister Sir Reg Empey said unionists were asking republicans to honour the commitments made on decommissioning. He said that republicans’ use of this “bargaining chip” to keep the peace process on tenterhooks was “morally repugnant”.

Neither side appears optimistic that there will be actual decommissioning within the six-week breathing space won by Dr Reid’s action to suspend the Assembly.

With no plans to bring the sides together in yet another attempt to achieve some form of consensus, political commentators see little prospect for advancement in the next six-weeks.

Speaking after a meeting on Saturday with Dr Reid, Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowan appealed for the politicians in the north to use the time productively and to work together.

Dr Reid considers a deal to be “tantalisingly close,” yet Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams does not apparently share this view. He told supporters gathered for a rally to commemorate the 1981 hunger strike on Sunday that republicans would neither give in to the British government nor yield to unionist pressure in the six-week period ahead.

The SDLP, stopping short of supporting the as yet unpublished proposals on policing, have called on the government to release full details of the implementation on policing. An SDLP spokesman said that uncertainty surrounding the 175 points in the Patten implementation proposals could be removed by publishing the document.

(SP)