Protestant Leaders Reject Plan for New Talks With IRA Ally

Pro-British Protestant leaders rejected a compromise Wednesday designed to allow IRA supporters to join them in Northern Ireland peace talks, angered that it didn’t specify when the militants must disarm.

Two small unionist parties walked out of the Protestant meeting after the leaders’ vote, and the mainstream Ulster Unionist Party insisted that it would not negotiate with Sinn Fein while its IRA allies remain armed.

Sinn Fein nonetheless is expected to join negotiations set to resume Sept. 15.

“No one ever thought this would be easy. I certainly didn’t,” said former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell, chairman of the effort to broker a compromise in British-ruled Northern Ireland.

The rejected guidelines, which British and Irish governments had spent a year crafting, say the Irish Republican Army and pro-British paramilitary groups should make “due progress” on disarming during the peace talks under the guidance of an international commission.

The Protestant unionist parties rejected the plan because it lacks specifics on when the IRA must hand over its first weapons.

The previous IRA cease-fire on Sept. 1, 1994, broke down on Feb. 9, 1996, partly because of the Protestant demands for IRA disarmament before talks could begin. Britain doesn’t want to force the issue and break down the IRA’s new truce, which began Sunday.

David Trimble, whose Ulster Unionist Party represents 30% of Northern Ireland’s 1.6 million people, has said he is committed to the talks. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday that he was pleased that Trimble had not pulled out of the negotiations.

“We’re going to try and find a way through, because in the end that is in the interest of the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland,” Blair told the House of Commons.