Joint government goals revived in Northern Ireland

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Northern Ireland's political enemies sat down Tuesday to discuss reviving a joint Roman Catholic-Protestant administration, the central goal of the 1998 peace accord for this British territory.\nBritain and the Irish Republic hope the coming months of scheduled talks will resurrect power-sharing. But their task appears daunting given the recent triumphs of extremists in Northern Ireland elections: the Democratic Unionists on the British Protestant side of the fence, and Sinn Fein on the Irish Catholic side.\nAs Democratic Unionist leader Ian Paisley exited Stormont Parliamentary Building, the would-be seat of power in Northern Ireland, he declared that his party would not negotiate with the Irish Republican Army-linked Sinn Fein.\nPaisley's negotiating team did break new ground by sitting, for the first time, at the same negotiating table as Sinn Fein -- but he insisted this was because the parties only delivered prepared speeches.\n"There is a difference between sitting in the room and negotiating your life, territory and all your liberty away," said Paisley, 76, whose party wants to forge a local government for Northern Ireland that minimizes Sinn Fein's role.\n"There were no negotiations today."\nPaisley's party defeated the moderate Ulster Unionists in the Nov. 26 election to seize control of the Protestant half of Northern Ireland's legislature, which has the power to form or block any local administration.\nNorthern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy, the British governor, and Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen said the Democratic Unionists' decision to participate was a hopeful sign.\n"No one pretends that it's going to be easy, but at least everyone was in that room," said Murphy, a key British negotiator during the negotiations that produced the landmark Good Friday agreement of 1998.\nThe Democratic Unionists boycotted those talks because of Sinn Fein's involvement.\nSinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said the Democratic Unionists still represented only a minority of Northern Ireland opinion, while most newly elected lawmakers -- including all the Catholics -- backed the agreement. He said their will must prevail.\n"To be effective, this review must defend and accelerate the process of change promised in the Good Friday agreement," Adams said. "And we sitting around this table must not lose sight of the fact that the agreement -- which as the culmination of an enormous effort by the two governments and the parties to tackle the causes of conflict -- continues to hold the promise of a new beginning for everyone."\nThe new U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland, State Department official Mitchell Reiss, also met Democratic Unionist leaders for the first time Tuesday.\n"You always have to be optimistic," he said.\nThe British and Irish governments hope by Easter to determine whether they can move ahead with unfinished sections of the landmark Good Friday pact.\nThe accord proposed several controversial goals designed to underpin stability in this British territory of 1.7 million people -- including police reform, British military cutbacks and freedom for imprisoned members of truce-observing paramilitary groups.\nThe bloodshed over Northern Ireland that claimed more than 3,600 lives since 1969 has largely abated, but the outlawed paramilitary groups responsible for most of the carnage remain active, armed criminal organizations -- the issue that repeatedly undermined the previous power-sharing administration.\nThat coalition, which was led by moderate Protestants and Catholics but included minority roles for both Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists, suffered several shutdowns over the IRA's refusal to disarm as the peace accord intended.\nPower-sharing collapsed in October 2002 after police accused a top Sinn Fein aide of gathering intelligence on potential IRA targets.