The outcome of last week’s elections in Northern Ireland should not be regarded as a rejection of the Belfast Agreement, according to Northern Ireland Secretary Mr John Reid.
Mr Reid met the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, in Dublin this afternoon to discuss the current impasse in the peace process for the first time since the UK general election.
Poor performances by the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist Party and the threat by First Minster Trimble to resign if the IRA do not move on decommissioning, have raised fears that the Agreement’s demise may be imminent.
"There are lessons to be learned from what has been said by the people of Northern Ireland. There has been concern expressed, but I am convinced that the concern or sense of frustration is not in any sense to abandon the Good Friday Agreement, but to see it implemented fully and more quickly in all its aspects," Mr Reid said.
"It is clear from the elections that the message to everybody from all parties is that they want devolved administration to continue - and they want to see it operating in full," Mr Cowen said.
Mr Cowen urged all parties in Northern Ireland to "stretch" to meet their responsibilities.
He repeated the two governments' insistence that there is no alternative to the Agreement.
PA