N.Ireland Counts Down to June 30 Deadline

LONDON (Reuters) - Northern Ireland has seven days to free its fragile year-old peace process from deadlock, and the British minister responsible for the province said on Wednesday she thought a breakthrough was possible. But with the annual marching ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Northern Ireland has seven days to free its fragile year-old peace process from deadlock, and the British minister responsible for the province said on Wednesday she thought a breakthrough was possible. But with the annual marching season — a traditional flashpoint for tensions between the province‘s Protestants and minority Roman Catholics — about to kick off, the voices of doomsayers predicting a breakdown were growing louder. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam said the province was living through dangerous times but shelving the issues until later was not a solution. „There is no Plan B. We are going for (June) 30th. Of course, we have thought about alternatives, but there is no Plan B ready to start the next morning,“ Mowlam told BBC radio. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has set June 30 as the deadline for setting up a power-sharing executive laid out in last year‘s Good Friday peace accord, which was supposed to put an end to 30 years of sectarian strife. More than 3,000 people have died in the three decades of violence between Protestant „loyalist“ militants determined to keep the province British and Catholic republican guerrillas seeking union with the Irish Republic. Mainstream guerrilla groups are observing truces but the Good Friday accord has failed to stop sporadic violence or heal divisions between Protestants and Catholics. Blair and Irish Republic Prime Minister Bertie Ahern are expected in the Northern Irish capital of Belfast later this week on a mission to rescue the peace deal. The peace process has stalled on the question of when guerrillas on both sides of the sectarian divide will hand over their weapons. Pro-British parties have refused to sit alongside Sinn Fein, political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), on the executive until the guerrillas disarm. Sinn Fein insists it has no power to force the IRA to give up its weapons. On Tuesday Blair delivered a blunt warning that the peace accord could collapse. Mowlam, who has come under attack from Northern Ireland‘s leading Protestant politician for being ineffectual, said there was a determination to make the peace deal work. The traditional parades by the Protestant Orange Order commemorate Protestant battle victories over a Catholic king three centuries ago. They are condemned as triumphalist and intimidatory by Catholics and have regularly caused sectarian clashes. Tuesday marked a low point in the verbal sparring between the divided political parties of the province. Feelings were heightened by the release of IRA bomber Patrick Magee from the Maze prison near Belfast as part of the Good Friday accord. David Trimble, leader of the pro-British Ulster Unionist Party and the province‘s first minister, said Northern Ireland had lost confidence in Mowlam. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said the present state of political limbo was untenable. „There is a very real danger that events on the ground could spiral out of control,“ Adams said in London‘s The Times newspaper.

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