Adams: Stop pandering to DUP and move on

Gerry Adams today urged the Government to abandon attempts to woo Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists into a peace deal and press ahead with troop cuts in Northern Ireland.

The Sinn Féin president insisted London and Dublin had spent long enough working on the DUP and should begin moves on a military scale-down.

Still smarting over the failure to restore power sharing in Belfast during the Leeds Castle summit in Kent, when it seemed unprecedented IRA disarmament was on the table, he claimed unionists should not be allowed to grasp for other excuses to avoid a settlement.,

Mr Adams said: “Every time there appears to be movement on one issue, for example the whole big issue was around the IRA, every time there appears to be some ability to resolve these issues then they (DUP) move on to some other issue.

“They’re obviously playing for time and our position is that they should not be allowed to do that. This phase of pandering to DUP intransigence needs to end.”

The DUP, which has pledged to transform the April 1998 Good Friday accord, wants the North's ministers to be more accountable to the 108 members of the Belfast Parliament.

Sinn Féin and the nationalists SDLP have fiercely resisted the move, even though they are desperate to see power sharing restored.

Mr Adams insisted any momentum from the three-day talks in Kent has not been followed up and called for the two governments to move on.

Sinn Féin's demands intensified pressure on the DUP after SDLP leader Mark Durkan earlier urged the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister to call their bluff by triggering power sharing moves.

Accusing Mr Paisley’s party of failing to engage properly during the Leeds Castle talks, Mr Durkan said both governments needed to resist any attempt to radically rewrite the Agreement.

“The SDLP engaged intensively in the talks,” the Foyle Assembly member said. “Nobody put forward more proposals than we did. Yet in response throughout all the negotiations we got nothing on paper back from the DUP. The time has now come to call the DUP’s bluff."