Dr John Reid,Spoke at Grand Hotel in Brighton
The Northern Secretary has said that recent international events mean that there is a "very cold wind blowing against terrorism across the world". Dr John Reid said that a door of opportunity now existed for paramilitaries to start putting their arms beyond use.
Dr Reid made his remarks at a fringe meeting of the British Labour Party's annual conference in Brighton. The conference is taking place in the Grand Hotel in the city, the site of the IRA bomb attack that nearly killed most of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet in the '80s.
The Northern Secretary condemned the murder of journalist Martin O'Hagan last week as "gangsterism which demeaned all of Northern Ireland". It is believed the murder was carried out by the LVF, using the cover name, the Red Hand Defenders.
Urging all paramilitary groups to decommission soon, Dr Reid quoted Gerry Adams who in his Árd Fheis speech last Saturday had said that terrorism was "ethically indefensible". The Northern Secretary added that, if that was so, the apparatus of violence was also indefensible.
