Sinn Féin must turn its back on violence, warns Blair

NO political party with links to active paramilitary organisations can have any future role in the North, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday.

As Northern Ireland’s politicians prepared for a make-or-break review of the Good Friday Agreement, Mr Blair said he was “not satisfied” that the so-called acts of completion needed to show republicans had definitively turned their back on violence had taken place.

But he said he believed the Sinn Féin leadership was committed to making the peace process work and called on them to end the “ambiguity” about republican intentions.