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Blair still hopeful over Ulster peace

British Prime Minister Tony Blair remained confident Tuesday that a deal to restore power-sharing government in Northern Ireland could be reached at a make-or-break summit next week.

"I believe that a deal is possible. If we don't get one at Leeds Castle, then we have got to look for another way forward," he said, referring to the venue in southeast England of the talks that open next Wednesday.

"There will be no deal unless two things happen: one, that it is clear that any party that wants to sit in government is not connected in any shape or form with paramilitary activity and that all paramilitary activity ceases, all of it, completely," he said at a Downing Street press conference.

"The other precondition is that if that happens, if to put it bluntly Republicans give up violence, give it up completely and verifiably, then it is right that there is then a power-sharing executive with Unionism."

Power-sharing government for Northern Ireland was set out in the Good Friday accords of 1998 that put an end to three decades of sectarian violence between Catholic republicans and Protestant unionists.

The province's assembly and executive have been suspended since October 2002, however, with the hardline Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) refusing to cut any deal so long as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) disbands.

Blair said the people of Northern Ireland would have a right to be cynical if the Leeds Castle summit -- to be chaired by the prime minister and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern -- only produces empty words.

Sending a message to the IRA and its political wing Sinn Fein, he added that republican hopes for a more autonomous Northern Ireland would not be achieved so long as they fail to renounce violence.

The IRA has been observing "a complete cessation of military activities" since August 1994, and given up some of its arsenal, but has resisted calls to give up armed struggle.

Blair said: "If there were to be a return to full-scale violence [in Northern Ireland], that would be a complete cul-de-sac for any of the aims republicanism wants to achieve."

There could not be a lasting peace deal "on the basis of a little piece of violence," he added.

"We can't be in a situation where you say, `Well as long as there is not a bombing campaign being targeted at Britain, then so-called punishment beatings and all the rest of it are somehow legitimate.'"

Speaking in London on Monday, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said doing business with the DUP at some stage is "inevitable", after Paisley said there could be no deal with Sinn Fein until the IRA disbands.
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