Hardline unionists 'can be moved', says Adams

Ian Paisley’s hardline Democratic Unionists can be moved to a position of accommodation with republicans, Gerry Adams insisted today.

As Northern Ireland’s politicians prepared for a make-or-break review of the Good Friday Agreement, the Sinn Féin leader said he believed the DUP would eventually follow the same path in the peace process as David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists.

But he told the British and Irish governments they could not afford to wait for the DUP and should press ahead with commitments made in the process over the past five years.

Even though Ian Paisley has insisted his party will not sit in government with Sinn Féin, Mr Adams told students in St Malachy’s College in north Belfast today: “The DUP can be moved.

“There is no doubt that unionism, even of the Paisleyite kind, will have to face in time the same reality that led the Ulster Unionist Party to agree the Good Friday Agreement.

“But this will take too long and the process of change and the rights of citizens cannot wait. The two governments have to face up to that reality.

“Sinn Féin believes completely in the need to build relationships with unionism. The dialogue between the Ulster Unionist Party and us was a central part of our strategy and we are determined, despite all the difficulties, to deepen and extend this dialogue to all elements of unionism.

“The DUP has an opportunity to demonstrate its good intentions but it must not be allowed to use the review to unravel the progress we have made.”

The review, which some Stormont sources believe will begin on February 3 and not January 29, will be chaired jointly by the British and Irish governments and will examine how the Agreement can be improved.

Sinn Féin and the SDLP have insisted the 1998 accord cannot be renegotiated, with Mr Adams arguing today there was no reason why the review should last more than a month or even more than a week.

However the DUP, which became Northern Ireland’s largest party in last November’s Assembly election, and the cross community Alliance Party, are hoping to achieve significant changes in a longer process.

Both parties are proposing a smaller Assembly, less government departments, and changes to the system by which Northern Ireland is governed under devolution, scrapping the four-party involuntary coalition which shared power until October 2002.

Mr Adams today criticised the British and Irish governments’ handling of the Agreement, accusing them of adopting a tactical approach.

The West Belfast MP acknowledged republicans were “not exempt from criticism” but he hit out at those who had focused solely on IRA arms and not on the weapons of “unionist paramilitaries and British state forces”.

While he commended Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern for starting a process of change five years ago, he alleged “anti republican” elements in London and Dublin had tried to devalue and frustrate Sinn Féin’s contribution and IRA initiatives.

The Sinn Féin president urged Mr Blair and Mr Ahern to spearhead a pro-Agreement strategy, and make it clear to those who were trying to wreck the accord they would not succeed.

“With the application of proper strategies and political will I believe the process can be moved on,” he said.

“However if the next five years is to be a continuation of the past five years, then we face continuous stalemate, stagnation and eventual breakdown. No political process could be sustained on such a diet.

“This places a heavy responsibility on the two governments – and especially on Mr Blair and Mr Ahern – to provide the essential political leadership that this dangerous crisis urgently demands.

“As the leaders of the two sovereign governments and the joint and co-equal guarantors of the Agreement, it falls to them to marshal the pro-Agreement forces and implement a strategy to defeat the wreckers and move the process forward.

“This may mean the pro-Agreement, pro-peace parties and governments agreeing and setting out an agenda for progress. Obviously such a task is outside the remit of the review and may require a different mechanism.”

Mr Adams said it also meant the British government lifting the suspension of the Assembly and other political institutions.

He said London and Dublin would also have to honour their pledges on police reform, the scaling down of the British Army presence, the return of paramilitaries who have been on the run, addressing concerns about the Equality and Human Rights Commissions, the status of the Irish language and allowing people in Northern Ireland to participate in political structures south of the border.