The decision by the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Reid, to suspend temporarily the Northern Ireland institutions was taken to protect the advances made in recent weeks. A formal review, involving the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, will take place today with the aim of having the institutions back in operation within days. The initiative is expected to allow the pro-Agreement parties and the two Governments a further six weeks in which to resolve current difficulties. And while the prospects for a breakthrough are not particularly encouraging at this time, the alternative, involving fresh elections to the Assembly and the likely polarisation of the political process, was even less appealing. Mr Cowen said he favoured a course of action that would do least damage to the Agreement.
The roots of the present crisis are embedded in a failure by the major parties to accept a "take it or leave it" package agreed by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, following intensive negotiations with Northern politicians. That package covered the four outstanding issues - policing, demilitarisation, the stability of the Northern institutions and decommissioning - and was found wanting, by both nationalist and unionist parties.
The SDLP wanted clarification on policing; Sinn FΘin on demilitarisation and the Ulster Unionist Party demanded a start to decommissioning before it would again share government with Sinn FΘin. Of critical importance, however, was the fact that none of the parties rejected the package out of hand. And an announcement by General John de Chastelain's decommissioning body that it believed a proposal from the IRA had initiated a process to put arms completely and verifiably beyond use, was hailed by the governments as a significant advance.
For the past number of days, the three main pro-Agreement parties have been engaged in the politics of blame and recrimination. Mr Gerry Adams recognised a serious crisis in the peace process and blamed the UUP. He called for fresh elections, rather than what he described as the illegal suspension of the Agreement. The SDLP, likely to lose ground to Sinn FΘin in such a contest, regarded fresh elections as "madness". The UUP, threatened electorally by the DUP, took a similar view and declared the only way out of the impasse was through IRA action on decommissioning.
We have been here before. The Northern Ireland Secretary believes the package of measures prepared by the governments has the capacity to move the process forward within the extra time available. They were, Dr Reid said, tantalisingly close to agreement and progress had been made both on policing and in relation to putting IRA arms beyond use.
A similar positive tone was adopted by the Taoiseach who said they should not minimise the valuable progress already made. There is no doubting the crisis that now hangs over the Belfast Agreement. But it has proved to be extraordinarily resilient in the past. And there is still a compelling case for a political deal.