Terrorists who engage in the political process, like the Provisional IRA, should be regarded as freedom fighters, former Northern Ireland Secretary Mr Peter Mandelson has suggested in a TV programme to be broadcast tomorrow.
Mr Mandelson said a distinction should be drawn between those terrorists who can be engaged in negotiation on a political solution and those, like the al-Qaeda network believed to be responsible for the September 11th atrocities in the US, with whom no negotiation was possible.
Once a terror group had gone down the political path, its members should no longer be seen in the same light as al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, he said.
Speaking on a Channel 4 programme about the impact of September 11th, entitled The Year the World Changed, Mr Mandelson said: "I think the distinction we have to make is not between good and bad terrorists.
"It is between those terrorists who have political objectives and are prepared to negotiate those objectives at the end of the day and engage in some sort of dialogue and ultimately some sort of political or peace process.
"I don't call them terrorists when they reach that stage. They are resisters. They are freedom-fighters, or whatever.
"They're like territorial, as opposed to international, terrorists.
"And it's what stage of development they're at, what attitude they have to politics, whether they're prepared to engage..."
Asked whether this formula would lead him to categorise Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams as a "freedom fighter", Mr Mandelson said: "I don't want to label Gerry Adams.
"But he is tied to the IRA, a terrorist organisation or a paramilitary organisation which is engaged in a ceasefire, which is committed to a peace process, whose political representatives take part in political institutions, and that's the difference."
British shadow cabinet minister Ms Theresa May described Mr Mandelson's comments as "astonishing".
She said: "If these reports are correct, it is astonishing that any Labour MP, especially a former Northern Ireland Secretary, could describe the IRA as anything other than a terrorist organisation."
- The Year the World Changed is due for broadcast on Channel 4 at 8 p.m. on December 29th.
PA