Agreement sought to avoid previous pitfalls

THE Taoiseach, John Bruton, can be satisfied that he has fulfilled his Government's obligation to consolidate the peace process after Wednesday's Anglo-Irish summit in Downing Street.

In the joint communique, he has presented the Sinn Fein leadership with a stark choice to get on the democratic bus leading to all party negotiations with a restoration of the ceasefire or to remain, with the IRA, in the trenches.

The direct challenge now confronting the president of Sinn Fein, Mr Gerry Adams, is a measure of the success of the summit.

Plagued with the prospect of being blamed in any way for breakdown of the peace process, the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste went for broke with Mr Major in the negotiation of the joint communique.

The contents of paragraph 12, dealing with decommissioning, represented the last hurdle to be surmounted before the summit was confirmed minutes after midnight on Wednesday morning. The principle of a fixed date for all party talks had been agreed but the actual date was only confirmed at the summit meeting itself.4

Mr Bruton emerged from the summit with the best joint communique since he assumed custody of the peace process 15 months ago. It was precise. It was unambiguous. And, reminiscent of the mood in that same room on the day that the Downing Street Declaration was published, Mr Bruton and Mr Major, for the first time in a year, were singing off the same hymn sheet.

As a result, the two governments, albeit belatedly and under the threat of the London bombs, have met all of Sinn Fein's demands for advancing the peace process and reinstating the ceasefire.

They have named Monday June 10th, as the date for convening all party negotiations. They have also agreed that the broadly acceptable elective process would "lead immediately and without further preconditions to the convening of all party negotiations with a comprehensive agenda".

There are other important elections in the joint communique which have received less attention.

Prompted by the delaying tactics employed by Mr Major and the unionists to stall the peace process in the past year, the Government has attempted to put time locks on all developments on the route to the June 10th negotiations.

A limited 10 days have been allocated for the two governments to conduct proximity talks, now called "intensive multilateral consultations", with the relevant Northern parties from Monday.

Following the resistance of the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, to meeting Mr Spring, these talks can be held in "whatever configuration was acceptable to those concerned".

Mindful of the precondition after precondition posed by Mr Trimble on any talks with Sinn Fein during the ceasefire, the agenda for the proximity talks has been laid down.

They are to scheduled to reach widespread agreement on proposals for a broadly acceptable elective process "leading directly and without preconditions to all party negotiations" and on the basis, participation, structure format and agenda of substantive all party negotiations and also to consider whether there might be advantage in holding parallel referendums in the North and South on the same day as the election "to mandate support for a process to create lasting stability based on the repudiation of violence for any purpose".

Because the likely absence of agreement at the proximity talks could further stall developments, Mr Bruton secured Mr Major's agreement to review the outcome of these consultations "immediately after their conclusion on March 13th".

The British government is then committed to bringing forward election proposals, "based on a judgment on what seems most broadly acceptable", and decisions on the referendum and the nature of all party negotiations.

Following the months of debate over whether the IRA's "complete cessation of military operations" was permanent, the joint communique requires "the restoration of the ceasefire of August 1994" before Sinn Fein can resume ministerial dialogue and participate in negotiations.

Notwithstanding the significance of the summit, however, it would be unwise for Mr Bruton to assume there, are no pitfalls in the communique. The Fianna Fail leader, Mr Ahern, has already asked whether there is any difference between the "all party negotiations" referred to in paragraphs 6 and 7 and the "substantive all party negotiations referred to in paragraph 10.

There is no reference to an elected body in the communique, thereby leaving the structural outcome of the elective process open for decision.

There is no definition, at this stage, of the basis, participation to structure, format and agenda for all party negotiations to be convened on June 10th.

Irish officials took considerable trouble to ensure that the British precondition of decommissioning did not figure in the joint communique. All participants, including Sinn Fein, will be asked instead to sign up to the six Mitchell principles on the first day of all party talks.

They will be asked also to "address" rather than accept the Mitchell proposals on parallel decommissioning at that stage. That carefully nuanced formula, where IRA decommissioning could be demanded unilaterally on the first day of negotiations, was said by informed sources to be giving pause for thought in the IRA.

The first working draft of Wednesday's joint communique was approved by the Cabinet subcommittee on February 16th and sent to the British government the same day.