N. Ireland Peace Talks Stall; Blair Calls Clinton

British Prime Minister Tony Blair turned to President Clinton late Wednesday after two days of negotiations with Northern Ireland’s Protestants and Roman Catholics failed to resolve an impasse in the beleaguered peace process.

Blair briefed Clinton on the faltering talks for about 15 minutes by telephone, but the U.S. president did not directly intervene as he did last year, when he secured the Good Friday peace accord.

The British prime minister and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, had set a midnight Wednesday deadline for the two sides to break their 14-month deadlock over Irish Republican Army disarmament and the formation of a cross-community government.

But the deadline passed without agreement on how to implement plans to end the 30-year conflict that has taken more than 3,500 lives. The talks adjourned early this morning and are scheduled to resume later today.

The British and Irish governments said the Irish Republican Army’s political wing, Sinn Fein, had met their demand for a guarantee that the IRA would give up all its weapons by May 2000.

Sinn Fein made an “explicit commitment,” said a British official who declined to be identified. He added that Blair and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams offered to make the statement directly to members of the Ulster Unionist Party but that such a meeting had not yet been arranged.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble reacted angrily to the reports of a promise from Sinn Fein.

“We have heard nothing precise from Sinn Fein. No undertaking has been offered to us, nor have we seen any detail on timetables. . . . We have seen nothing in writing,” Trimble said, shaking his finger.

The IRA’s arsenal is believed to include surface-to-air missiles, Semtex explosives and automatic weapons. Its adherents would see the handing over of any of these weapons as a form of surrender, even though the IRA has been under a cease-fire since July 1997.

For months, unionists have been saying that they would not agree to form an executive Cabinet including Sinn Fein unless the IRA first begins to destroy or deliver some of its arsenal.

Sinn Fein had responded that it is separate from the IRA and could not deliver those weapons. Sinn Fein accused the unionists of trying to rewrite the peace accord, which calls for parties to work in good faith toward the “decommissioning” of weapons but does not require disarmament until May 2000.

Under the accord, a self-governing Northern Ireland would remain part of Britain for the time being. The unionists want Northern Ireland to remain part of Britain, and nationalists want the province to join the Irish Republic.

The deal that is reportedly now on the table demands a commitment from Sinn Fein for full IRA disarmament by May in exchange for immediate establishment of a Northern Ireland executive that includes Sinn Fein.

A timetable for disarmament would be presented in September, and the IRA would begin handing over or destroying weapons in October. If the IRA reneged, the deal would be off and the executive dissolved.

It appeared that both sides were moving toward that position Monday, but by Tuesday night the unionists appeared to be getting cold feet, believing they could not trust verbal commitments from Sinn Fein.

Social Democratic and Labor Party leader John Hume, who shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Trimble for the Good Friday accord, attributed the problems to habitual distrust.

“There is a distrust factor after centuries of a quarrel that you just don’t remove in a fortnight,” Hume said.

It was in this environment that Blair turned to Clinton, who earlier in the day had beseeched the two sides, meeting at Stormont, the center of British administration in Northern Ireland, to “give peace a chance.”

Clinton told reporters after a speech in Chicago that he stands ready to become personally involved if he is needed.

“I will do whatever I can to be helpful,” he said. “We’re moving forward, and I’m hoping for the best.”

It was unclear how long the sides would continue negotiating after talks resume later today.