Paisley: talks with IRA a sop
Following a meeting with North Secretary Peter Hain, Mr Paisley said he was “much concerned” by the meeting, at which he had handed over a document outlining his party’s next steps.
“As for the joint declaration, so-called, the joint declaration did not come into the negotiations or talks that we had with the Government and it has nothing to do with us to resurrect it now,” he said, describing it as a “sop” to negotiate with the IRA.
“We also told him (Mr Hain) that the people of Northern Ireland are very angry. There’s a great bitterness and a terrible pain and wound has been inflicted on them.”
He said he told Mr Hain that he had not consulted with Unionists over what he called the “secret agreement”.
Dr Paisley also attacked the process of normalisation: “To suggest to us that on the border we should now have what they’re calling normalisation is absolute nonsense because I have been round the border and talked to the police and the police tell me that except they have the support of the Army they cannot police,” he said.
On the RIR, he said that the DUP was assured by the Prime Minister that nothing would be done about it until they were consulted, but they had not been. He described this as “disgraceful”.
Deputy leader Peter Robinson told reporters that the DUP would force the Government to stick “to the letter” to what they had agreed before.
“They will know today that the Democratic Unionist Party does not fit into that,” he said.
But Mr Hain insisted that the Government would not take any risks with security in the province.
But Mr Hain declared that there would be “no precipitous drawdown” of British troops in the North.
The DUP has been infuriated by the speed of Government plans to scale back Britain’s military presence in the North following the IRA’s announcement that it is to end its armed struggle.
