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British, Irish PMs Trying to Rescue Peace Deal
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern are holding a series of talks with North Ireland's main parties throughout Thursday in Belfast, capital of the British province, in an effort to head off fresh crisis over the fragile peace process there.
The bilateral talks with the parties are focusing on the issues of paramilitary arms decommissioning, demilitarization and policing reform, which have been causing deep divisions, BBC reported.
Before the talks started on Thursday, David Trimble, the first minister in the British province's power-sharing executive, threatened to resign on Sunday if the IRA has not started to decommission its weapons.
Trimble's resignation would mean the two governments and the political parties would have six weeks from Sunday to decide what course of action to take.
The British government said it did not think it could do enough to stop Trimble from resigning. Unlike in February 2000 when the British government suspended the assembly to pre-empt an earlier resignation threat by David Trimble, it now seems prepared to let him resign on this occasion to add urgency to the attempts to find a resolution.
Arriving at Hillsborough Castle, the Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said that the threat to the political process did not come from republicans, but from the first minister, his pending resignation.
The head of the decommissioning body, General John De Chastelain, is also meeting the premiers in Belfast.
The talks are scheduled to end this evening when Blair is expected back in Downing Street.
This is the second time this year that Blair has come to Northern Ireland to become directly involved in talks aimed at ending the stalemate between the parties.
In March, after a marathon session of 13 hours of talks hosted by Blair and Ahern at Hillsborough Castle in North Ireland, the parties were no closer to finding a resolution.
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