Senator Mitchell: Time to move forward

The US politician who helped negotiate the Good Friday Agreement urged all parties in the North today to move forward following the IRA decommissioning.

Senator George Mitchell, 73, said it was time for the next step after the paramilitary organisation put its weapons beyond use under the supervision of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD).

He said: “I’m pleased it’s occurred. It’s not the last step but it’s a very significant one and hopefully all the parties will move forward.”

He said he trusted the head of the IICD, General John de Chastelain, as a man of integrity and added that unionists, who have expressed scepticism about the IRA move, had to do the same.

“They have to accept the reality that this is the manner in which it’s going to occur.”

Both the British and Irish governments are expected to begin talks shortly to attempt to get the suspended Northern Assembly up and running again, while pressure is also expected to grow on loyalist paramilitaries to decommission their weapons.

Senator Mitchell, whose five years in the North culminated in the signing of the Good Friday power-sharing agreement in 1998, said the history of distrust in the North stretched back hundreds of years.

“It’s not easy to eradicate feelings deeply held and attitudes held over a period of time. What we have to do is move forward and I think that’s what’s going to occur,” he told RTÉ radio.

The US politician’s mother came from Lebanon, while his father was the orphaned son of Irish immigrants in Boston.

He was awarded the US’ highest civilian award, the Medal of Freedom, by US President Bill Clinton in 1999 for his work on the Northern peace process and wrote a book about his work, Searching For Peace.