Sinn Fein Says British Government Must End N.Irish ImpasseSinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), challenged Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid on Monday to explain why he believes a political breakthrough was "tantalizingly close".Speaking at a press conference in west Belfast on Monday, party president Gerry Adams said the only way for Reid to prove this was to move on "honoring the British government's obligations" under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Sinn Fein reacted angrily to the suspension of the assembly for 24 hours at the weekend by the Northern Ireland secretary. This was to trigger another six-week period in which the British and Irish governments will work with the parties to try to gain a settlement. But while he rejected that the assembly was now working fully, Adams said republicans were still engaged with the process. The British and Irish governments have been trying to broker a resolution on the issues of decommissioning, policing, demilitarization and concerns about the stability of the political institutions. The proposals they presented to the pro-Agreement parties last week to try to break the impasse were not fully accepted. Some of the details of the plan -- including the implementation plan on policing -- have not yet been published. Adams called on Reid to publish the plan, to move on demilitarization and to stabilize the political institutions, partly by ensuring Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble returned as first minister. The Ulster Unionist veto on Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness and Bairbre de Brin attending North-South Ministerial Council meetings as education and health minister, must also be lifted, he said. "At the weekend the Northern Ireland secretary said the resolution of the current problems was tantalizingly close, let him then put meat on the bones of this rhetoric," Adams said. At the weekend, Adams warned of the danger that republicans would be alienated from the process by the decision to suspend the political institutions -- a move asked for by Trimble. |
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