World

Tough Talk On Irish Peace Plan

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

June 28, 1999 / 7:06 AM EDT / CBS

British Prime Minister Tony Blair made an impassioned plea to Northern Ireland's political parties Saturday to accept his blueprint to end conflict in the province, saying he could not believe it would be rejected.

"Anyone who is opposed to this deal will have some explaining to do," he said in a BBC interview.

Blair spent a grueling five days in Belfast this week but failed to push the pro-British unionists and pro-Irish Sinn Fein republicans to agree terms to sit together in a devolved provincial government.

Under the plan, Blair and Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland said they were hoping to see Northern Ireland's legislative assembly elect the new administration on July 15, reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth.

"We have a plan which gives Northern Ireland an historic opportunity," a British government spokesman said.

The blueprint asks the unionists to accept the July 15 creation without prior disarmament by the Irish Republican Army guerrillas - but with the option of pulling out again if the IRA does not start to disarm within days.

Blair told the people of the British-ruled province: "This will give you the one chance for a peaceful future you have. You wanted decommissioning (disarmament) of paramilitary weapons. This is the only way you are ever going to get it."

Blair said he had spent more time on Northern Ireland than any other prime minister and that a rejection would be "such a betrayal of the children of Northern Ireland."

But the conditional nature of the plan was underlined by Ahern, who called it "an agreement for consideration."

Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party, accentuated the plan's positive aspects of the plan, but did not commit to it.

David Trimble, the head of Northern Ireland's major British Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, called it "fundamentally unfair," saying Sinn Fein would be allowed to join the government without a firm commitment that the IRA would surrender its weapons.

Both men were expected to consult with their party members to see whether they could sell a package that contained unpalatable compromises for both.

The IRA waged a 30-year war against British rule in the tiny province, sparking a tit-for-tat war with pro-British loyalist guerrillas that claimed 3,600 lives.

Unionists Saturday remained very dubious about the IRA's readiness to hand over its arsenal.

Ken Maginnis, security spokesman for the powerful Ulster Party, said: "We have been asked literally to jump onto glass on our bare feet, and because the IRA have not agreed to give up their guns, they have been given a free run."

Blair's response was direct: "If unionism doesn't take this opportunity, what are people going to conclude? Here you could have all the decommissioning of weapons, all you have to do is wait and see whether the process begins."

Adas was much more welcoming. "We are going to try. I think it is important that none of us say anything which would unsettle any section of our people," he told BBC Radio.