Good Friday Agreement negotiators to meet again

The Good Friday Agreement has delivered partnership between those who supported it and those who opposed it, one of its architects claimed tonight.

As politicians involved in the negotiations 10 years ago that led to the Agreement prepared to take part in a symposium in Belfast tomorrow reflecting on the accord, SDLP leader Mark Durkan said those who drafted it were entitled to take satisfaction that it was being implemented a decade on.

“The SDLP said in 1998 that we designed the Agreement to ensure partnership between those who voted yes and those who voted no (in the subsequent referendum) as well as between unionists and nationalists and so it is proving,” the Foyle MP said.

“We now have a settled process as all parties, at last, accept power-sharing, north/south structures and a reformed police service.

“We must not revert to the stop-go process that hampered the Agreement for too long. Of course our problems are not all behind us.

“The Good Friday Agreement endorsed by the people was the emancipation of hope. Our task is the emancipation of opportunity.”

Under the chairmanship of former US Senator George Mitchell, politicians from eight Northern Ireland parties and the Irish and British governments secured the Good Friday Agreement 10 years ago.

The accord covered a wide range of issues from the setting up of a power-sharing government involving unionists and nationalists and a devolved Assembly, to north-south relations, police reform, paramilitary disarmament, early prison releases, and the rights of Irish and Ulster Scots speakers.

It was passed simultaneously in referenda on both sides of the border, with the Republic of Ireland agreeing to drop its constitutional claim over Northern Ireland.

But while 71% of the people of the North backed the accord and the vast majority of nationalists supported it, the margin was much tighter in unionism.

Assembly elections in 1998 paved the way for a new power-sharing government jointly led by Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble and SDLP deputy leader Seamus Mallon and involving ministers from the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin.

Frustrations over the early release of paramilitary prisoners, police reform and especially a deadlock over whether the Agreement required the IRA to decommission its weapons led to the suspension of the Executive.

The Executive was reformed and decommissioning achieved but concerns over IRA activity led to further suspensions with the Executive eventually collapsing in 2002.

Devolution did not return until May last year after a deal was thrashed out between the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin who eclipsed the Ulster Unionists and SDLP electorally.

The symposium organised by the US Ireland Alliance will tomorrow reunite Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Senator Mitchell with others involved in the negotiations, including Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy, decommissioning chief General John de Chastelain, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, Ulster Unionist leader Reg Empey, loyalist Davy Adams and former SDLP leader John Hume.