Britain Invites IRA to Talks on N. Ireland Peace

LONDON — Stirring both hope and alarm in embattled Northern Ireland, Britain on Friday formally invited the political arm of the outlawed Irish Republican Army to participate in peace talks for the first time.

The government of Prime Minister Tony Blair said the six-week absence of violence that has followed the resumption of an IRA cease-fire has earned the political party Sinn Fein a place at the negotiating table in Belfast, the Northern Ireland capital, on Sept. 15. But some British-loyalist parties threatened to boycott the talks.

Although the announcement had been expected, it was a historic step after seven decades of unflagging hostility between successive British governments and mostly Roman Catholic republican forces fighting to end London’s rule of the divided province.

Sinn Fein, whose top two leaders will visit the United States next week, hailed Friday’s move as “the most wonderful opportunity this century to bring about a settlement.”

Moderate Catholics in the province and the Irish government to the south expressed their pleasure.

The British government wants the talks--to be mediated by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell--to involve all of Northern Ireland’s political parties. But leaders representing the Protestant majority in the province reacted with skepticism, scorn and the boycott threat. One Conservative British member of Parliament denounced Friday’s invitation as “a further capitulation to terrorism.”

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has long demanded unconditional admission to peace talks. The British government dropped an early insistence on a surrender of IRA weapons, but Blair, who took office in May, had demanded unequivocal restoration of the cease-fire broken by the IRA in February 1996.

The IRA announced a resumption of the cease-fire July 19, although in the weeks before it there had been continuing violence, including the killing of two police officers in June. And some analysts remain concerned that the move is one more tactic in an unending IRA war.

But Britain’s secretary for Northern Ireland, Marjorie Mowlam, said Friday: “On the basis of the information that I have at present, I believe it to be an unequivocal cease-fire. There is no evidence that there is IRA activity. Active targeting has stopped.”

British troops have been withdrawn from central Belfast, and police now patrol there in shirt sleeves and holstered pistols rather than with flak jackets and longer weapons.

Sources in Belfast at the Royal Ulster Constabulary--a prime IRA target--say they have seen no signs recently of IRA training, surveillance or dry-run attacks. So-called “punishment beatings” of petty criminals in Catholic areas by IRA toughs have also stopped, the police sources say.

Sinn Fein negotiator Martin McGuinness, who will accompany Adams on his upcoming visits to New York, Washington and San Francisco, said his party will enter the talks arguing that partition of Ireland has been a failure and must be ended. “We believe the best solution is a unitary state, a united Ireland,” McGuinness said.

Two right-wing Protestant parties said flatly Friday that they will not attend the conference. The Rev. Ian Paisley, who leads one of those parties, called Friday’s announcement “a sellout” of loyalist interests.

The largest Protestant party, though, the Ulster Unionists, so far has ridden the fence despite intense pressure from both sides. David Trimble, the party leader, warned Friday that he will not sit at the same tables with Sinn Fein negotiators, who “all have blood on their hands.”

“We expect tough talking on all sides. No one will be forced to agree if they don’t want to,” Mowlam said, attempting to blunt criticism from Protestants who support the province’s current union with Britain.

Before talks are convened, Sinn Fein must first formally renounce violence, agree to abide by the outcome of the talks and swear to irrevocably accept democratic practices.

Sinn Fein leaders have already accepted those requirements in principle. Of more substantive concern is the establishment of an international commission on the surrender of paramilitary weapons.

The IRA has a huge arsenal of arms and explosives hidden in Northern Ireland and south of the border in Ireland, which became independent after Britain partitioned the Catholic south and the mostly Protestant north in 1921.

The arms commission, still in the process of being formed, is to operate parallel to the political talks. Protestants want substantial surrender of IRA weapons as the talks proceed, to demonstrate that violence is indeed over. The IRA has rejected any surrender of weapons in advance of a final negotiated settlement.

“This temporary cease-fire is just like the last one, and not a single weapon or gram of explosive has been handed over,” complained Conservative Member of Parliament David Wilshire. “If they [the IRA] cannot get a united Ireland through these discussions, they will go back to bombing again.”

Mowlam reiterated Friday that majority consent will be required for any political changes in Northern Ireland. Blair’s Labor government, like its Conservative predecessor led by John Major, promises that change must be approved by the parties involved, by the voters of Northern Ireland in a referendum and by the British Parliament.