Durkan uneasy over mixed agenda for summit

The leader of the SDLP Mr Mark Durkan today again expressed disquietabout the war summit in Belfast being combined with discussions…

The leader of the SDLP Mr Mark Durkan today again expressed disquietabout the war summit in Belfast being combined with discussions on the NorthernIreland peace process.

However, Mr Durkan confirmed that he would be leading his party into the roundtable discussion with US President George Bush, British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair and theTaoiseach Mr Ahern on the peace process tomorrow.

Mr Durkan said: "What I'm uneasy about is this mixed summit - co-locatingdiscussions about the war in Iraq with discussions about our peace process."I accept that they are separate discussions but I am not happy with thatco-location and I have made that clear," he added.

"I am not going to disguise that. I am determined to take part in whatevertalks there are about our situation but I'm not going to be dishonest orhypocritical enough to pretend that I do not have misgivings about thecircumstances in which they are taking place," Mr Durkan said.

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Mr Durkan said the SDLP had always been an avowedly anti-war party.He said the party had always opposed people "who claimed to wage war in ourname as the people of Ireland."

"We have always opposed the illegal war that was waged in Ireland by theIRA. The fact that we opposed it didn't mean that we didn't talk to people whowere involved in overseeing it and it didn't mean that we didn't talk to peoplewho justified it. That's what democratic and diplomatic means," he said.