Sinn Fein insist peace remains priority
Sinn Fein remains committed to achieving peace in Northern Ireland, Gerry Adams has insisted.
Mr Adam’s comments come after the IRA withdrew a conditional offer to put its weapons beyond use.
On Wednesday, the IRA announced it had withdrawn its offer to enter into a “new mode” of decommissioning – after it was blamed repeatedly for carrying out the £26.5m Northern Bank raid in Belfast in December.
“Sinn Fein is totally opposed to any return to conflict, we are totally wedded to our peace strategy. We resent greatly any suggestion to the contrary,” Mr Adams told journalists on Saturday, after a meeting of party members in Dublin.
Asked repeatedly if Sinn Fein would now have to distance itself from the IRA, Mr Adams accused the British and Irish governments of abusing the party’s role as messengers for the paramilitary group.
“The (British and Irish) governments will obviously try to play down and to minimise the crisis. Or they try to project it as a crisis within republicanism. The crisis is within the peace process,” Mr Adams stressed.
On Friday, the IRA released a fresh statement warning London and Dublin not to underestimate the seriousness of the current peace process situation.
On the same day, Irish foreign minister Dermot Ahern warned Sinn Fein that the party must conclusively sever its links with the paramilitary organisation if it wants to play a role in politics – north or south of the border.
Mr Adams stressed on Saturday that representatives of both the British and Irish governments must be less confrontational in their efforts to secure peace.
“Government ministers doing meetings with Sinn Fein which are businesslike meetings and then presenting them to the media as confrontational, as high-noon … isn’t helpful whatsoever,” he said, calling on all sides to adopt a sensitive approach to the peace process.
