Leaders unveil Northern Ireland peace package

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- The British and Irish prime ministers unveiled a sweeping new Northern Ireland peace plan Wednesday that offered solutions to issues -- particularly Irish Republican Army disarmament -- that have bedeviled negotiations for a decade.

The leader's optimism was offset, however, by statements from the two key parties in the conflict -- the British Protestants of the Democratic Unionists, and the Irish Catholics of Sinn Fein -- that they could not fully support the plan.

Each blamed the other for being unreasonable on the key stumbling block: whether the IRA should allow disarmament officials to photograph the destruction of the outlawed group's remaining weapons stockpiles. Sinn Fein said the existence of such photographs would humiliate the IRA after decades of armed struggle.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, appeared to side with Protestant demands for photos and held out hope that the argument could be solved quickly so the wider plan still could be put into effect this month.

"What we've achieved is remarkable but not yet complete," Blair said at a joint news conference with Ahern in Belfast.

He noted Protestants had demanded photos of IRA disarmament up front, while the IRA-linked Sinn Fein called for none at all. The governments' compromise called for the photos to be taken but withheld from publication until Northern Ireland's legislature elects a power-sharing administration led jointly by the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein.

Power-sharing was at the heart of Northern Ireland's Good Friday accord of 1998 but collapsed two years ago after a moderate-led coalition suffered a series of breakdowns over IRA activity. Also, the moderates were voted out last year, greatly complicating efforts to revive the arrangement.

Without visual proof of disarmament, Democratic Unionist leader Ian Paisley said Protestants could not support the revival of a combined Roman Catholic-Protestant administration.

Nonetheless, the 23-page document published Wednesday offered a catalog of diplomatic advances achieved during the past year's negotiations.

The plan sought the IRA's full disarmament by Dec. 31, followed by the convening of the Northern Ireland legislature in January. Lawmakers would elect an administration, jointly led by the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein, by March.

The package also included several detailed scripts for each key participant in the talks to read:

-- Sinn Fein would pledge support for Northern Ireland's police force;

-- The Democratic Unionists would promise to govern alongside Sinn Fein;

-- The IRA's seven-man command would pledge full disarmament by the end of the month;

-- The disarmament chief, retired Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, would confirm that the IRA had agreed to allow photos of disarmament to be taken and for Catholic and Protestant clergymen to serve as independent witnesses.

Crucially, Blair and Ahern proposed that any disarmament photos would be shown to Protestant leaders only after the general published his final report on IRA disarmament. The photos would have been published on the same day that the power-sharing administration was elected.

"We believe that would have been a workable compromise," Blair said.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, a reputed IRA commander for the past three decades, said he understood the prime ministers' reasons for publishing the proposed statements in the name of Sinn Fein and the IRA but asked them not to do it.

Adams did not deny the tenor of the governments' version of a possible IRA statement about full disarmament, but noted, "it can't have the status of an IRA statement until the IRA signs off on it."

Also, he emphasized that, when initially asked in September about the prospect of photographing disarmament, Sinn Fein had ruled it out and was "shocked" to see it inserted into the most recent drafts of the governments' plans. He said photographs constituted "an impossible demand" designed to humiliate the underground group.

But Ahern countered that Catholics and Protestants alike were entitled to "certainty and clarity" that disarmament had actually happened.