JOHN Major has pronounced on Northern Ireland. After two weeks of Government sure to provide reassurances to Sinn Fein, he has shown his hand. In doing so he has sought compromise between nationalists and unionists and invoked the core compromise of the Mitchell report political progress and parallel decommissioning.
The intervention by the British Prime Minister, designed to facilitate the "unequivocal restoration" of the IRA ceasefire, is not as full blooded as the encouragement provided by John Bruton two weeks ago. But it does move the situation forward. And it provides a guarantee that negotiations on an open agenda" will be "meaningful and inclusive", with all parties treated equally.
The British government's intention is to ensure, Mr Major writes, that the June 10th negotiations "will be a genuine and serious effort to reach a comprehensive settlement, covering all the issues of concern and acceptable to nil involved".
The basis of any settlement would be a three stranded approach which would "command the widest possible acceptability, accommodate diversity and provide for the necessary mutual reconciliation". Any settlement would have to be endorsed by the people of Northern Ireland in a referendum.
ON the crucial question of decommissioning, Mr Major says: "The British and Irish governments have agreed that all the participants in the negotiations will have to make clear at the beginning of the talks their total and absolute commitment to the principles of democracy and non violence set out in the Mitchell report.
"Decommissioning will also need to be addressed at the beginning of the talks and agreement reached on how Mitchell's recommendations on decommissioning can be taken forward, without blocking the negotiations."
The flexibility, not to say the vagueness, of the language used by Mr Major in that key paragraph provides room for future political manoeuvre. For while decommissioning will have to be addressed at the start of talks, as demanded by unionists, a conclusion in terms of the destruction of weapons is not specified.
Any agreement will be based on the recommendations of the Mitchell report on decommissioning, and the overriding consideration will be to avoid blocking the negotiations.
Mr Major's presentation is a considerable departure from the original British government position, which demanded the destruction of some IRA weapons before political talks could begin. It spurns the early unionist demand for the surrender of all IRA weapons. But it does not meet the full terms of Martin McGuinness's wish list.
Last Sunday Mr McGuinness sought a commitment from Mr Major that the talks would be "meaningful and comprehensive" and he is told that they will be "meaningful and inclusive" with an "open agenda".
He sought an assurance that the decommissioning issue would not form an "obstacle to talks" and receives a qualified, and mainly positive, reply. As for a negotiating time frame of six to nine months, Mr Major does the best he can in a situation where he does not control the talks. No one, he writes, wants "to drag out the process". But, he warns, the road to an agreed settlement will continue to be "long and painstaking".
Recent discussions between the British government and the Ulster Unionists have centred on proposals that the decommissioning issue might be dealt with during all party negotiations by a special all party sub committee, a suggestion originally made by Dick Spring.
But David Trimble is suggesting hat, pending agreement on decommissioning matters within this fourth strand, discussion within he other strands should be confined to the agendas for talks and timetables.
The Government is of the view that such a formula would be a recipe for disaster. The absence of substantive political progress in the talks, one source said, would stymie progress on the decommissioning issue.
Talks should proceed in parallel. And the agenda for discussion within the fourth strand he confined to decommissioming he went on, but should include other Mitchell recommendations on confidence building, including prisoners, policing, punishment beatings, the "disappearance" of IRA victims and a whole range of items.
EVEN though Mr Major's article marks an advance on the British position, the will not like it. That organisation has consistently maintained that not a single bomb or bullet will be handed up before a final political settlement is agreed.
But the Mitchell report is all about political compromise an agreement and the parallel decommissioning of weapons. And Mr Major lays particular emphasis on the need for compromise and confidence building between the two communities in Northern Ireland.
The unionists, in particular, he writes, would have to be reassured that paramilitaries would not seek to use or threaten force if they could not get their way at the negotiating table. And there would have to be an unequivocal IRA ceasefire before Sinn Fein could he admitted to the talks.
No party can dictate what a settlement would look like, Mr Major declares. No party can expect to get all it wants. All parties will have to persist in the process, even when the going gets tough. The gap between the two political traditions is by no means unbridgeable, he suggests, and "the shape of an eventual settlement can occasionally be glimpsed behind the sound and fury of the parties".
Mr Major does not offer an insight into the nature of that settlement. But he declares that his government will work "unremittingly to make a success of the negotiations". He is still wedded to a three stranded approach. And the Government seems satisfied that progress is being made. The ball is now in the IRA's court.
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