Talks aimed at preventing the collapse of the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland appeared to be on the brink of failure on Wednesday, when the British and Irish prime ministers withdrew after three days of talks and flew back to their respective capitals.
The mood at Hillsborough Castle, south of Belfast, was gloomy. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Irish counterpart Brian Cowen set what amounted to an ultimatum, saying the parties that control the Belfast government had to agree on a settlement of the contentious issue of police and justice powers by today.
Otherwise, Britain and Ireland would “publish their own proposals” — and, by implication, lay down a unilateral schedule for carrying them out.
PHOTO: REUTERS
British officials said privately that the patience of Brown and Cowen was exhausted after negotiations that lasted until nearly dawn on Wednesday, then resumed hours later, only to deadlock again.
Veterans of past talks said the air of crisis was reminiscent of the negotiations that preceded the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which laid down a blueprint for peace in the province, and the years of subsequent talks that were needed to gain agreement on the power-sharing institutions in Belfast.
The officials said the British and Irish leaders had left the disputing parties — the mostly Protestant Democratic Unionist Party and the mostly Roman Catholic Sinn Fein — with a stark choice: settle their differences over police and justice powers within 48 hours or have London and Dublin impose a deal that would provide for the disputed powers to be transferred to the Belfast government in May.
In that event, the officials said, the parties would be left with little choice but to accept the settlement or pull out of the Belfast government, thereby collapsing the power-sharing deal.
Brown, looking weary, said with barely disguised exasperation: “On the issues, we believe there is a realistic prospect of a reasonable agreement. What we have asked is that the parties look at these proposals in detail.”
The Hillsborough talks followed months of brinkmanship over the relinquishing of direct British control of the police, the prosecution service and the courts in the province to local control.
The issue has a powerful resonance for Catholics and Protestants after 30 years of sectarian bloodshed. During that time, the police, then heavily Protestant, were regarded by many Catholics and republicans as a paramilitary arm of the unionist parties in their struggle to keep Northern Ireland permanently a part of Britain.
Sinn Fein leaders have threatened for weeks to pull out of the 32-month-old power-sharing government if the powers are not transferred. But Peter Robinson, the leader of the Democratic Unionists, who is the province’s first minister, has said that unionists’ “community confidence” is not ready for the transfer.
Some unionist politicians say they fear that local control of the police and the courts will lead to lawlessness, allowing dissident republican groups that have challenged the power-sharing deal with a campaign of bombings and assassinations to go unpunished.
Robinson, facing a strong challenge on the issue from conservative unionist groups, has insisted that any deal with republicans include the abolition of the parades commission, which has angered many unionists by sharply limiting their right to parade through heavily Catholic neighborhoods.
The issue has emotional overtones on both sides of the political divide. For Robinson, demanding an unfettered right for Protestants to stage parades at places and times of their choosing offers the prospect of strong backing from the Orange Order, a powerful Protestant organization dedicated to reinforcing British control.
Catholics have traditionally viewed Orange Order parades through their neighborhoods as a provocation.
Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein leader who as deputy first minister is effectively Robinson’s co-equal in the power-sharing government, said after the Hillsborough talks broke up that his party would “not accept” subjecting citizens’ rights to “an Orange Order veto.”
Robinson was equally brusque. He said his party would not accept “a second-rate deal” on policing powers to suit “someone else’s time limit.”
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