Sinn Féin breaks new ground over power-sharing

Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness will today talk face-to-face for the first time with a Northern Ireland Chief Constable.

The ground-breaking meeting with Chief Constable Hugh Orde will take place in the presence of British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Downing Street as efforts to revive power-sharing reach a critical stage.

The Sinn Féin leadership will demand a massive programme of demilitarisation in Northern Ireland as Democratic Unionist leader Ian Paisley prepares to meet the head of Northern Ireland’s independent disarmament body, General John de Chastelain, in Belfast.

The Sinn Féin delegation will also include former IRA prisoner Gerry Kelly, who is the Assembly member for North Belfast.

But while Sinn Féin insisted ahead of the meeting they would not address policing, the PSNI said the issue would be discussed because it was linked with demilitarisation.

“The Chief Constable is meeting with the Prime Minister and the Sinn Féin leader to discuss policing,” a PSNI spokesperson said.

“The Chief Constable will meet anyone who has a positive contribution to make to policing in Northern Ireland.”

Sinn Féin’s chairman Mitchel McLaughlin, whose party has boycotted policing structures, said the current talks process still needed to address the need for a massive programme to scale down military installations in the North.

The Foyle Assembly member said: “Sinn Féin has consistently argued that there is a need for an immediate and accelerated programme of demilitarisation.

“This is a vital part of the peace process and part of the unfinished work of the Good Friday Agreement.

“It is time for the British government to move speedily to deal with this matter. It is a critical issue for nationalist Ireland.

“Previously, Mr Blair has told us that the responsibility for demilitarisation rests with the Chief Constable.

“Sinn Féin is meeting him with Mr Blair in order to press the case for an end to the military occupation in republican heartlands, and to test his commitment to bring this about. There will be no discussion on policing issues at tomorrow’s meeting.”

The issue of how a future act of IRA disarmament will be carried out will be the focus of a meeting today between General de Chastelain and the Democratic Unionists at his Belfast offices.

The DUP has been pressing for photographic evidence to accompany any arms move. During a speech in North Antrim on Saturday, the Rev Paisley was adamant that future disarmament would have to be transparent.

“On the vital matter of the decommissioning of the IRA’s illegal arms, I said at the Leeds Castle talks in September seeing is believing,” the North Antrim MP said.

“Unionists will not settle for any disingenuous and valueless decommissioning act. It will have to be seen before it is believed. Decommissioning must be decommissioning. It must be credible and it must bolster the confidence of the unionist people.”

When efforts to revive power-sharing stumbled in October last year, there was criticism of the way his contribution was handled.

David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists halted the sequence of events completing a deal because General de Chastelain could not go into any specifics at a Hillsborough Castle press conference about the act of decommissioning he had just witnessed.

Talks sources said yesterday that General de Chastelain’s role would be crucial if a deal is struck.

SDLP Assembly member Alex Attwood said last night that his party was happy to take General de Chastelain’s word about decommissioning, but republicans would have to respond to the need for the full facts to emerge.

“We always have (believed the General’s word) and believe that others should do so also,” the West Belfast MLA said.

“The General is a man of integrity and has proved this in the past. However, the IRA claims to recognise the need to maximise public confidence on decommissioning. The IRA needs to act on this. There is no reason why full facts of decommissioning should not be made clear to everybody. This should not be a secret process.”