DEPUTY FIRST Minister Martin McGuinness said yesterday that “significant progress” had been made at the marathon talks in Stormont which are aimed at achieving a breakthrough in the stalled agreement on the transfer of policing and justice.
Mr McGuinness told a crowd of several thousand people at the annual Bloody Sunday commemoration rally in Derry that Sinn Féin’s negotiations with the DUP were based on equality and rights, neither of which was negotiable.
And at the same rally SDLP leader Mark Durkan said the publication of the seven-year inquiry into the killings should not be delayed because of the impending British general election.
Yesterday’s march and rally marked the 38th anniversary of the killing by British army paratroopers of 13 unarmed men and the wounding of 14 other civilians during a civil rights march in the Bogside area of Derry on January 30th, 1972. Only one parent and only four spouses of those shot dead are still alive.
The Saville Report into the killings is due to be presented to Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward in about six weeks’ time and the families of the 13 victims have called for the report, which is more than 4,000 pages long, to be made available to them at the same time as it is handed over to Mr Woodward.
Mr McGuinness told the rally that his party’s lengthy talks with the DUP, which are due to resume today, had to deliver a positive outcome.
“I am happy to say we have made significant progress. Institutions which don’t deliver are worthless and something I will not be involved in. I now hope we have a basis upon which nationalists, republicans, unionists and loyalists will move forward together on the basis of partnership and equality. There is no other realistic or viable path available,” he said.
Meanwhile Mr Durkan said it was now clear that the publication of the Saville report on Bloody Sunday would take place in the countdown to a British general election.
“Even if the debate is before the election, it will take place in a charged atmosphere where proper consideration of the families’ feelings or of the public policy implications for the British armed forces are likely to fall victim to partisan posturing.
“That would be in nobody’s interests,” he said.