Peace boost needed for North elections, says Ahern
Speaking after meeting with the Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble, Mr Ahern said if there was movement on all sides it was possible to have an election, a working executive and everything that was in the Good Friday Agreement.
As efforts intensify this week to get the stalled peace process up and running, Mr Ahern warned the time remaining for setting up the elections was short.
“We are going to try and do as much as we can in the next two weeks,” he said. “We have to really move now. Otherwise we are pushing it back into November and that is not a great idea.”
Mr Trimble said an end to paramilitarism and major action on decommissioning was required if the Assembly was to be restored.
“We want to see a complete end to paramilitary activity and it happening in a context where we can be sure it doesn’t come back.
The Monitoring Commission, which has been set in place and I appreciate what has been done to set them in place, that is part of a way of assuring people that in the new dispensation if there is any continuing paramilitary activity it will be spotted and responsibility clearly attributed if it occurs,” he said.
Mr Trimble said a major decisive move was needed on the decommissioning front to ensure an end to this activity and agreed that the time frame for an election was short.
“It does really boil down to achieving a breakthrough over the next few weeks,” he said.
But on the bright side, Mr Trimble said he hoped that the positive summer would help the parties move forwards in the course of the next couple of weeks.
With the goal of achieving an election in November in sight, the Irish and British Governments are understood to have set out a timetable of three weeks of intensive meetings.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen will meet a SDLP delegation in Dublin today and then the Northern Secretary of State Paul Murphy on Thursday.
