Martin McGuinness, the ex-IRA commander turned Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, will meet Queen Elizabeth II next week in a historic first for the peace process, his party said on Friday.
The republican Sinn Fein party said McGuinness had been invited to meet the monarch at an event in Belfast on Wednesday, which Irish President Michael Higgins will also attend.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said the party leadership had decided on Friday that the meeting should go ahead, saying it was the “right thing to do at the right time and for the right reasons.”
“In the context of conflict resolution and national reconciliation, as well as our own republican national objectives, the Sinn Fein Ard Chomhairle [national executive] agreed that Martin should accept the invitation,” he said.
“I accept that this decision will cause genuine and understandable difficulties for some people, not least some of the victims of the British crown forces in Ireland,” he said.
Adams stressed that the event was not part of the celebrations for the queen’s diamond jubilee, marking her 60th year on the throne.
Buckingham Palace would only confirm that McGuinness had been invited.
“We understand that Martin McGuinness has been invited to the meeting,” a spokesman said, refusing to comment further.
It is the latest step in McGuinness’s journey from militant to peacemaker, which saw him take a leading role in both the sectarian violence that plagued Northern Ireland for three decades and the peace process that followed.
Sinn Fein is the political wing of the now-defunct Irish Republican Army paramilitary group.
It has always boycotted royal engagements in Northern Ireland in the past.
Sinn Fein members have always refused to take up their seats in the British parliament because it would mean swearing an oath of allegiance to the monarch.
However, McGuinness signaled a change in his stance during his campaign for the Irish presidency earlier this year, when he said he would be willing to welcome all heads of state, including the British queen, if elected.
Last year, the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, made a landmark visit to the Republic of Ireland, the first by a British monarch since it won independence in 1922.
Seen as the last piece in the jigsaw of peace in Northern Ireland, which remains part of the UK, the visit required the republic’s biggest-ever security operation.
However, through some highly symbolic gestures — including speaking in Irish — she melted away enough post-colonial angst to permit a walkabout.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS