POLITICAL LEADERS BEGIN CRUNCH TALKS ON PEACE PROCESS

CRUNCH talks between the British and Irish Prime Ministers and the main political parties in Northern Ireland have taken place on Monday in Weston Park, Staffordshire against a media blackout.

The talks, which are widely expected to last two days, have been greeted with optimism by the two premiers, although both admit a lot of tough talking remains to be done.

Speaking at his country residence in Chequers, Tony Blair said: “We will conducting intensive negotiations with all the main parties in Northern Ireland to try and ensure that we push the process forward yet again.

“We have just been reviewing the progress there has been made under the Good Friday Agreement and it is remarkable how much has been agreed and how much is functioning. The main constitutional issues have been settled, an executive, there is an assembly, north-south bodies that certainly can and should function well and real progress towards equality and fair treatment for everyone.

“All that remains to be done is for us to settle down and do the hard work.”

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern added: “This is the week where we can try to finish the outstanding issues. Over the next few days, if we work together and everybody puts in the sincere efforts they put in three and a half years ago when we negotiated the Agreement, I believe there can be a successful conclusion on it.”

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, however, has grimly maintained that it is time for the IRA to decommission, he said: “The simple fact of the matter is that absolutely nothing has happened. Other things have been implemented, in fact they have been over –implemented, and there are areas that in the course of implementation the Agreement has been broken and those are matters we want to deal with.

“There is no excuse for the republicans – they haven’t even started, and other people have been working hard and made a considerable effort while they have done very little.”

Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Féin said: “What the good Friday Agreement is all about is underpinning all the matters which need to be righted and which the parties and two governments to a certain degree have righted. As far as I am concerned the only way this will fail is if people like us give up and we’re not for giving up.”

The talks are being held amidst a media blackout. Only one press photographer was admitted to take photographs of the politicians sitting down together. Police have sealed off Weston Park House and the surrounding with the media being kept outside the five-mile long perimeter wall. (AMcE)