‘A moment of definition draws near' in NI talks - Andrews
‘A moment of definition draws near' in NI talks - Andrews
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr David Andrews, TD, has told the Ambassadors of the European Union in Dublin that "a moment of definition draws near" in the multi-party talks. We will soon know "whether we are indeed firmly on course for a settlement".
Mr Andrews explained that "after the lengthy preliminaries, we are approaching the heart of the matter. The crucial issues on which agreement must be reached are emerging into sharp focus. Next week's review plenary must mark the end of the beginning. We must emerge from it with, at the very least, a sense of the route leading to our destination".
Highlighting the fundamental purpose of the Talks, he said that "We want nothing less than a new beginning in all the relationships within our island and between these islands. That new beginning must be rooted in agreement between the two great traditions on the island. People must feel an identification with, and an allegiance to, the institutions through which they govern themselves and which serve their society. Those institutions must bring them together for the common good, not drive them apart in mutual fear and suspicion", the Minister said.
"Bitter experience has shown us clearly that strategies of domination and coercion are not only unjust, but doomed to fail. The lesson must be that no settlement can be imposed by one community on the other, whether by force of numbers or by force of arms. Nor should it be. In over thirty years in national politics, I have argued this on almost a daily basis".
He said that "we must build institutions and create a civic ethic, which reflects the equal realities of both allegiances and identities. These will include structures within Northern Ireland and embracing the island itself, as well as East/West structures and arrangements which will cater for the totality of relationships between the peoples of these islands. Provisions which will address the equality, justice and rights agenda, as well as a shared understanding on constitutional issues, are also required".
Mr Andrews commented that the new institutional architecture emerging from the Talks "will inevitably represent a careful and intricate balance between interests and aspirations and will have to be grounded in realities. Its negotiation will call for a willingness on all sides to offer change in the interests of agreement". Institutions designed to cope with complexity and diversity "must themselves be complex and diverse. That will not be a weakness, but a strength. The simplicities of victory and defeat follow the logic of the battleground, not of the conference chamber"
"I have been asked whether the Irish Government is interested in conquest or stability. My answer was clear. We seek stability, but with one rider: the only real stability is that based on the allegiance and support of the people as a whole, and not on domination or on minimal departures from an unacceptable status quo. As such it can be achieved only through real and substantial change".
Mr Andrews concluded that "real engagement is now under way". He said we must use next week's plenary "as a springboard to a new and still more intensive phase of concrete negotiation". It is for us "to make our own history, conscious of, but not paralysed by, either memories of the past or visions of the future. We have never had a better opportunity than we do now". Top
