British Prime Minister Tony Blair must act as a guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, says SF president

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair must act as a guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said yesterday.

Mr Adams said there were no grounds for expelling his party from the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland and added that the Irish Government must continue its opposition to any suspension of the institutions.

It was time for Mr Blair to show to republicans and nationalists that he was prepared to act as guarantor for the agreement, he said.

Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble has urged Mr Blair to expel Sinn Féin from the Stormont executive after allegations of IRA intelligence-gathering.

However, Mr Adams said that this was ridiculous.

The current crisis, he said, had merely been brought forward from what would have happened following a UUP deadline for the IRA to disband in January.

“There is no basis for such a motion and David Trimble knows that,” Mr Adams said. “David Trimble’s party decided to do post-January of next year what they are threatening to do next Tuesday.”

Mr Adams said he would tell Mr Blair, when he meets him today, the same things he said after the Ulster Unionist council meeting last month. “The job of the two governments is to minimise the damage done to the agreement by any exodus by the unionists from that institution up at Stormont,” he said. “The responsibility of the Irish Government, because the Irish Government has clearly set its face against suspension, is to stick to that position because it is not a unilateral decision.

“This British Secretary of State has taken unilateral action too many times. Too many times we have seen him standing the agreement on one side while he panders to or makes concessions to the unionists.”

Mr Adams said the only threat posed to the peace process came from loyalist paramilitaries and said the destruction of the institutions at Stormont would only serve the will of anti-agreement unionists: “The only agenda which is served by leaving the institutions, by suspending the institutions, by seeking to expel people from the institutions, the only agenda which is served is the Paisleyite agenda,” he said. “And I say that not to demonise Ian Paisley, because at least he is honest, he doesn’t like Catholics, he doesn’t like uppity Catholics.

“The reason they are against Sinn Féin is because while we’re prepared to be fair, while we’re prepared to deal with them on the basis of equality, we’re also the people who stand up to them in terms of our rights and the rights of our constituents.”