DUP to snub Good Friday Agreement anniversary

The DUP looks likely to snub planned celebrations marking this year's tenth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

A party spokesman said it was unlikely to attend the event in April, which its thought will be attended by the Taoiseach and former British and US leaders, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

The celebrations will include a fund-raising dinner in Dublin and debate in Belfast to be attended by most of the negotiators who signed the Agreement in April 1998.

However, the DUP, which boycotted those talks, is unlikely to attend.

DUP Assembly Member Stephen Moutray said the Agreement represented unionist's lowest ebb with terrorists released, no decommissioning and no requirement to support policing.

But, he said, DUP negotiations since had vastly improved the unionist position and the Good Friday Agreement was, in effect, dead.