IAIS: MOWLAM REINFORCES JUNE 30 DEADLINE


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MOWLAM REINFORCES JUNE 30 DEADLINE
06/20/99 21:19 EST

Northern Ireland's parties cannot afford to slip beyond the 
Government's deadline for the formation of a devolved 
executive, Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam warned 
today.

Mowlam told the BBC that the parties must avoid going past 
the government's June 30 deadline and into the summer 
marching season.  "If we go past the 30th, into Drumcree, 
into a long summer, a lot of the good work could well be 
unpicked", she said.

Ms Mowlam said decommissioning was not a precondition for 
Sinn Fein to take its two cabinet seats on the 10-member 
executive, but it was an obligation under the Good Friday 
Agreement. "It's got to start at some point and the real 
problem is which step is taken first and it's about trust, 
it's about confidence, it's about believing if you move, I'm 
gonna move and we've both to move to make it work. Both of 
us want it to, but unless we move none of us are going to 
get what we want." 

Ms Mowlam believed decommissioning could happen at any time 
but she said it may be possible that if the executive is 
formed first, it may give the paramilitaries the necessary 
confidence to fulfil their obligation to hand over arms. 
"There was never a better opportunity to reach agreement 
than now", the Northern Ireland Secretary said.

While she conceded low level violence was still taking place 
in Northern Ireland, she was keeping the IRA and loyalist 
ceasefires under review but would not be rushed into making 
any judgments about them. Ms Mowlam was speaking as the 
North's pro-Agreement parties prepared for another push this 
week to form a power sharing government in Belfast. She will 
kickstart 10 days of intense negotiations to break the 
decommissioning deadlock tomorrow by meeting the Irish 
foreign minister Niall Andrews in Dublin.

Political development minister Paul Murphy will also hold 
preparatory talks with the parties over the next three days 
before the Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Premier 
Bertie Ahern join full negotiations on Thursday. Both 
leaders have cleared their diaries to help Sinn Fein and the 
Ulster Unionists resolve their differences over the 
formation of an executive and the disposal of paramilitary 
weapons.

Sources close to the talks say the parties have not yet 
agreed whether the negotiations will take place 
around-the-clock or stretch into next weekend in a bid to 
meet the government's June 30 deadline. But a measure of the 
difficulties faced by the two governments in brokering a 
deal could be seen this weekend by statements issued by the 
Ulster Unionists and Sinn Fein in recent days.

After their executive meeting on Friday, the UUP insisted it 
would not "sit in an executive with Sinn Fein/IRA until they 
have begun a credible and verifiable process of 
decommissioning leading to complete disarmament by May 
2000."

But in a statement issued on Saturday night, Sinn Fein 
responded by accusing Ulster Unionists of trying to 
blackmail and block progress on the executive. "In the 
context of the overall implementation of the Good Friday 
Agreement, what the Ulster Unionists are demanding is that 
Sinn Fein alone must deliver decommissioning while the 
Agreement itself is not implemented".

"Their position is clearly in breach of the Agreement signed 
in good faith by all the parties. Of those nine parties who 
signed the Good Friday Agreement, the Ulster Unionist Party 
is the only one which is not backing its full 
implementation." continued the statement.
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