NORTHERN IRELAND:THE NORTH'S First and Deputy First Ministers Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, who met president Barack Obama in Washington yesterday, said political stability in Northern Ireland would undermine dissident activity.
Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness presented a united front against dissident activity at the Northern Ireland bureau event in the US Chamber of Commerce.
“There are those who argue that dissident activity undermines the stability that we are building. They are wrong. It’s the other way round. The stability we are building undermines the dissidents,” Mr Robinson said. “That stands whether we are talking about political dissidents or paramilitary dissidents,” he added.
Mr McGuinness likened the “new relationship” in Northern Ireland to a “plant that needs cared for, nurtured, looked over, supported and fertilised”. He said he was “absolutely 1,000 per cent certain” that relations would go from strength to strength.
“To those people who believe they can drag us back to the past. If they want to live in the past, they can live in the past. We’re moving forward,” Mr McGuinness said.
He said he was proud to be in the United States with Mr Robinson, SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie, the North’s Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster of the DUP and Ulster Unionist Party leader Reg Empey.