Britain Accused of Threatening N. Ireland Peace

As preliminary peace talks on Northern Ireland ground to a halt, an official of the political wing of the Irish Republican Army warned Sunday that the British government is threatening the peace process by not including the party in full discussions.

“All-party peace talks within an agreed time frame must be the next stage of the peace process,” Sinn Fein official Martin McGuinness said, warning in remarks made in County Kildare in Ireland that Britain’s failure to start such negotiations “effectively devalues and subverts the peace process.”

A day earlier, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams warned during an official visit to South Africa that a return to violence is “possible” and said that Sinn Fein would no longer participate in preliminary talks with the British in Belfast.

The British have insisted that Sinn Fein and the IRA start handing over their weapons before the party is admitted into full talks with the government and other political parties.

A cease-fire has been observed by the IRA and Protestant-backed loyalist paramilitary groups since September.

McGuinness, who led the Sinn Fein delegation in the preliminary talks, called the British demand for handing over weapons “a lame excuse which prevents real peace talks.”

And he accused British Prime Minister John Major and Northern Ireland Secretary Patrick Mayhew of playing a “dangerous and cynical game.” By holding firm on the weapons issue, McGuinness said, they are “wrecking the peace process over a symbolic gesture. This is both dangerous and dishonorable.”

Bertie Ahern, leader of Fianna Fail, Ireland’s largest party, said in Dublin that he believes it is impossible for the IRA or loyalist paramilitary groups to surrender weapons in advance of full talks.

Asked about the danger of renewed violence, Ahern declared: “Clearly there is a pressure on the Sinn Fein leadership, as I interpret it, asking them to do something which they cannot do. It is not an issue that they can negotiate on. They cannot deliver on this.”