Emerging from today's Stormont meeting, the Northern Secretary, Mo Mowlam, said she was still determined to achieve devolution for Northern Ireland by her deadline of the week of Good Friday. Today's round table talks session involved all the pro-Agreement Parties in the Assembly along with the UDP and the Labour Party. The meeting was chaired by Mo Mowlam. The SDLP was represented by Seamus Mallon and John Hume and Sinn Féin by Mitchell McLaughlin and Barbara De Bruin.
Although the anti-Agreement Unionists did not attend the round table sessions they will be having separate talks this week with Dr Mowlam. The pro-Agreement parties who met this morning are likely to have another round table session later this week. Today's meeting was the first of a series scheduled for this week in another attempt to break the deadlock over weapons decommissioning and the establishment of a Northern executive. The meetings are aimed at reaching a consensus before Easter.
The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair will hold informal discussions on the fringes of the EU summit in Berlin tomorrow and both leaders may also travel to Belfast in the coming days, to try and nudge nationalists and unionists towards agreement. Face to to face discussions between the North's First Minister, David Trimble and the Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams, are to take place later in the week. The meetings come ahead of next week's anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
The Junior Foreign Affairs Minister, Liz O'Donnell, has said too much is at stake for the Irish and British governments to contemplate failure in this latest initiative. President Clinton has offered to give any help he can in the Northern Ireland peace process. He made the offer in a phone call to the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in which he briefed Mr Blair on the meetings he held last week in the White House with Irish politicians.
In a separate development, IRA prisoners in the Maze have supported the organisation's refusal to hand in its arms. Sinn Féin Assembly member Gerry Kelly, who had talks with the prisoners, said no-one of them had suggested any gesture or movement on decommissioning. Gerry Kelly and other members of Sinn Féin briefed IRA prisoners in the Maze on the state of the peace process today. Mr Kelly, led the party delegation, which spent four and a half hours with prisoners at the County Antrim jail. A Sinn Féin spokesman said the purpose of the meeting was to update and inform prisoners as the Good Friday devolution deadline draws closer.
