THE Government is maintaining its position that a resumption of the IRA ceasefire is necessary before Sinn Fein can participate in all party talks, a spokesman said last night.
"The declared objective of the republican movement was to gets to all party talks. Such negotiations commenced on June 10th and that provided a golden opportunity for the reinstatement of the ceasefire," the Government spokesman said, in a comment timed to coincide with the anniversary of the 1994 ceasefire.
"It is important to recollect that the republican movement's slogan was Peace Talks Now. The date arrived on June 10th and there was no ceasefire. The Government's policy remains unchanged - a ceasefire is necessary for SF's participation in talks."
Speaking on RTE yesterday, the Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring, said it would be "very foolish" of the IRA to postpone renewing its ceasefire until after the British general election.
He called for an immediate restoration of the ceasefire to permit Sinn Fein to take part in the Stormont talks which resume on September 9th. He disagreed with Mr Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein who had described the talks as a "shambles" in an article for the Irish News. "As I understood it," Mr Spring said, "Sinn Fein wanted talks as soon as possible. We are in a situation now where we have the talks underway."
He added: "At this stage, everybody must realise that violence is not going to achieve anything in Northern Ireland and now, more than ever, because of the difficulties during and after the summer we've got to be around the table in serious, and substantive negotiations.
Asked to comment on the threat by the Combined Loyalist Military Command against Mr Billy Wright, the Tanaiste said that if such a threat were carried out "it certainly would create enormous difficulties for everybody at the talks" and the matter would have to be examined when the talks resumed. He said he would not rule out the exclusion of the loyalist parties.
Commenting on the talks in general, he said there was "a great deal of work to be done" and that a lot of mistrust had to be removed following the summer marching season.