Good Friday Agreement review begins

Northern Ireland's main political parties have commenced an attempt at the restoration of the devolved power-sharing political institutions today.

Following the initial meeting today, as the two Government's launched the review of the Good Friday Agreement, the Secretary of State said that there was "generally an agreement" that there should be a return to devolution.

At a round table meeting in Belfast on Tuesday, the DUP, UUP, Sinn Féin, SDLP, and Alliance read opening statements, which reflected the varying contents of their submissions handed recently to the Secretary of State, Paul Murphy, on what they wanted to discuss during the review.

Earlier Mr Murphy said: "I am going into this review with a pretty open mind and hopefully all parties will engage in the process, and that we can come out not only with a review of the Agreement, but hopefully too with the restoration of the institutions."

Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble said the underlying problem with the current deadlock was the failure of the IRA to engage in acts of completion.

“Unless there are meaningful, confidence building acts of completion there is no real prospect of progress in these review sessions. In fact the review can only serve to mask the underlying problem," he said.

However, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said the spotlight should not be on decommissioning but about better delivery of the Agreement.

The DUP, however, want to see a radical overhaul of the Agreement and are seeking to find a means to achieve this goal. Deputy leader of the DUP Peter Robinson said that the party had an agenda that would allow all the issues to be discussed during the review talks.

The SDLP leader Mark Durkan said he was not prepared to accept a review process that involved "private deals".

The Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended in October 2002 following an alleged republican spy-ring within Stormont.

(MB)