UNITED KINGDOM: FORMER U.S. SENATOR GEORGE MITCHELL ARRIVES TO SPEARHEAD CRUCIAL TALKS ON NORTHERN IRELAND PEACE PROCESS

Record ID: 191318

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: FORMER U.S. SENATOR GEORGE MITCHELL ARRIVES TO SPEARHEAD CRUCIAL TALKS ON NORTHERN IRELAND PEACE PROCESS
  • Date: 5th September 1999
  • Summary: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (SEPTEMBER 5 1999) (REUTERS-ACCESS ALL) 1. LV FORMER US SENATOR GEORGE MITCHELL'S FLIGHT ARRIVING AT LONDON HEATHROW AIRPORT 0.35 2. SV GEORGE MITCHELL WALKING THROUGH AIRPORT TERMINAL 0.42 3. VARIOUS GEORGE MITCHELL BEING DRIVEN THROUGH TERMINAL ON BUGGY 1.29 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 20th September 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
  • City:
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Reuters ID: LVABSAAD2THHK1PEX0EAIWA6IGFN
  • Story Text: Former United States Senator George Mitchell has
    arrived in the UK to spearhead crucial talks on the Northern
    Ireland peace process.

    Mitchell arrived in London on Sunday (September 5,
    1999) on his way to Belfast, where he's due to chair crucial
    talks to break the deadlock in the Northern Ireland peace
    process.

    The British government hopes Mitchell can repeat his
    success in April last year, when he helped broker an end to 30
    years of strife between pro-British Unionists and Irish
    nationalists.

    Two Northern Irish parties on opposite sides of the
    sectarian divide decided on Saturday to take part in the new
    round of U.S.-chaired talks aimed at restarting the province's
    faltering peace process.

    Despite expressing deep mutual scepticism, Sinn Fein, the
    Irish Republican Army's political ally, and the pro-British
    Ulster Unionists agreed to back their leaders and attend a
    review chaired by U.S.mediator George Mitchell from Monday.

    The Roman Catholic Sinn Fein and the Protestant unionists
    accuse each other of being in breach of last year's Good
    Friday accord which was meant to usher in a new era of
    politics and end generations of guerrilla strife.

    Their decision to take part was crucial to the new talks
    and had seemed far from certain in recent days amid a new
    round of acrimony over whether the IRA was abiding by its
    cease-fire.

    Implementation of the peace deal had already ground to a
    halt because unionists refuse to share power with Sinn Fein
    until the IRA disarms.The Good Friday accord urged all
    parties to achieve disarmament by May 2000.

    Though violence that raged for 30 years has subsided in
    the wake of ceasefires by republican and pro-British loyalist
    extremists, the province's peace process is in a deep rut.

    The main hope is that Mitchell, an adept mediator who led
    crisis talks that produced the Good Friday pact, can again end
    a logjam about IRA disarmament and new political institutions.

    Mitchell, due to arrive in Belfast on Sunday, made clear
    in an interview that he would not contemplate failure.


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