Minister says lessons learned can be applied internationally

THE GOVERNMENT has learned key lessons from the Northern peace process that can be applied internationally, the most important of which is that conflict resolution demands enormous resolve, commitment and "above all else" tenacity, according to Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern.

Mr Ahern told the European Mediation Conference in Belfast yesterday that as a result of the success of the peace process the Government had made conflict resolution one of its key foreign policy goals backed up with concrete initiatives.

Some 400 mediators from across Europe are attending the three- day conference, which opened yesterday in Belfast's Waterfront Hall to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement.

The conference, organised by Mediation Northern Ireland and the Scottish Mediation Network, is is examining how mediation can be used to build peace, maintain social stability and promote dialogue in divided communities.

Mr Ahern said: "The very duration of [ the Northern] conflict and the success of our peace process convinced me that we had learned lessons about conflict resolution and that we ought to share them.

"To that end the Irish Government has announced a Conflict Resolution Initiative which places conflict resolution and mediation at the core of our foreign policy," he added.

Mr Ahern recalled how as a newly elected TD in 1988 he was involved in early secret contacts between Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin organised by Fr Alec Reid. "There was risk in all of these meetings and no guarantee of success."

Mr Ahern, in a reference to the three sets of relationships that underpinned the Belfast Agreement - internal Northern Ireland relations, North-South and British-Irish relations - said that Irish policy was always predicated on the notion that the problem of Northern Ireland could only be approached in the context of its "widest totality of relations".

This rationale applied to conflicts great and small. "In Darfur for example, the mediation process will only succeed with the combined will of Khartoum, those governments closest to it, including for example China, and the international community to address the underlying issues."

Equally in the Middle East, mediation could not be a substitute for addressing and redressing key underlying issues.

Former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari told the conference that all conflicts could be resolved.