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Talks on Northern Ireland Continue
The British and Irish governments kept up the pressure on rival Catholic and Protestant delegations early Wednesday as negotiations to salvage Northern Ireland's peace process spilled into a third day.
The talks at Weston Park, an isolated 17th-century mansion in central England, continued past midnight. British officials said it was not clear how long the talks would go, but confirmed that the diplomatic push was continuing.
Prime Minister Tony Blair was rearranging his schedule so he could remain at the negotiating table with Northern Ireland's chief power-sharing parties and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.
But the effort to solve Northern Ireland's deepening crisis suffered a setback Tuesday when outlawed anti-Catholic groups withdrew their support for a 1998 peace accord.
The Ulster Defense Association, which had supported the 1998 accord because it freed hundreds of its members from prison, said it could no longer back a deal that leaves Irish Republican Army supporters in the four-party Cabinet governing Northern Ireland.
The smaller Ulster Volunteer Force said that it was also withdrawing support for the pact and would steer clear of future negotiations, but would continue to meet a commission created to oversee disarmament of outlawed groups.
Commanders of the UDA and UVF emphasized they would maintain their cease-fires, which predate the Good Friday pact and have greatly reduced terror attacks on Northern Ireland's Catholic minority, though these have increased in recent weeks.
The statements underscored the need for an immediate breakthrough on the most pressing issue facing the negotiating parties ¡ª IRA disarmament.
But despite an amicable round-table discussion by Northern Ireland's chief Protestant and Catholic parties on Tuesday night, hopes of a breakthrough were running low.
Ahern, who has emphasized the need for an immediate IRA move so that Protestants would stay in Cabinet alongside Sinn Fein, said there had been "no progress so far."
Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party, said the governments and other parties in Northern Ireland's four-party administration were wrong to be demanding any disarmament now.
Sinn Fein said any IRA action must be accompanied by more British military cutbacks and tougher plans for reshaping Northern Ireland's mostly Protestant police force. Britain has already withdrawn several thousand troops, closed more than two dozen bases, and passed police-reform legislation that Catholic politicians refuse to support.
Politicians linked with the UDA and UVF were involved in Monday's negotiations at Weston Park, but Blair and Ahern dismissed them in order to concentrate on the three parties present from the province's administration: Sinn Fein, the moderate Catholics of the Social Democratic and Labor Party, and the Protestants of the Ulster Unionist Party.
The fourth coalition member, hard-line Protestants from the Democratic Unionists, oppose the 1998 pact and weren't invited.
Like the IRA, the UDA and UVF were supposed to scrap weapons in support of the Good Friday pact and have refused, insisting the IRA go first.
Unlike Sinn Fein ¡ª which in recent years has grown to represent half of Northern Ireland's Catholics and holds two of the Cabinet's 12 posts ¡ª politicians linked to the UDA and UVF win too few Protestant votes to hold influential positions.
The UDA said its roughly 2,000 members had privately opposed much of the 1998 deal for a long time and claimed most Protestants "have grown to despise" the direction of peacemaking in Northern Ireland.
A UVF-linked politician, David Ervine, said he had asked a series of questions to the Sinn Fein delegation Monday but received no straight answers.
In Washington, the Bush administration cautiously welcomed an effort by former President Clinton to help salvage the Good Friday pact, which he had a major role in putting together.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Clinton, who is in England on private business, had met with Blair and Ahern "in his capacity as a private citizen."
Fleischer said Clinton had contacted the State Department about a possible trip to Ireland for peace talks. Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, said he talked to Clinton on the telephone in England.
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