Paisley Says Hopes for Peace Talks ‘Dead’

The province’s most hard-line Protestant leader, saying the Irish Republican Army’s new cease-fire doesn’t offer any real concessions, declared hope for peace talks “dead in the water.” The Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, said after meeting British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London that Blair’s government was “a slave to the blackmail of IRA violence.” Paisley vowed he would never sit down with Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political arm. Blair has invited the party to join peace talks when they resume in earnest Sept. 15 if the IRA cease-fire holds.