SF voices `frustration' at Blair, unionist stance on peace process

Sinn Fein will this week express its frustration over the impasse in the North's peace process following a weekend meeting of…

Sinn Fein will this week express its frustration over the impasse in the North's peace process following a weekend meeting of its ardchomhairle which party sources described as "angry and excitable".

The party will give its "considered assessment" of the peace process towards the end of the week after further deliberations among its leadership. It will "express ongoing anger and frustration at the role of the British government and the behaviour and attitude of unionists", according to a party source.

Meanwhile, the party's vice-president, Mr Pat Doherty, has stressed that any chance of IRA decommissioning by the May 2000 deadline contained in the Belfast Agreement is "entirely out of the question" because of the recent failure to set up a multiparty executive.

Speaking on BBC1's Breakfast With Frost, Mr Doherty said disarmament had to be carried out in a political context "and there is no political context at the moment. We are nowhere near that context".

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With Stormont in recess and many politicians on holiday, the SDLP's senior negotiators, Mr Sean Farren and Mr Eddie McGrady, will meet the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, at Downing Street today.

A party spokesman said the negotiators would put forward ideas for the review process which is due to begin on September 6th and will be chaired by Senator George Mitchell.

"We want to make sure parties engage in a constructive way and Senator Mitchell appreciates our negotiating skills and will make sure we remain central to the process," he said.

"Although people will want to recharge their batteries with a break, we want to put forward ideas when we have them.

"We've agreed to keep in touch with the Irish Government, with whom we had a constructive meeting on Friday, and will doubtless do likewise with the British government."

Mr Martin Ferris, Sinn Fein's representative for North Kerry, speaking after the ardchomhairle meeting, said that "no one should underestimate the extent of the crisis we are now in".

"Fourteen months after the Good Friday agreement we still have no executive, no all-Ireland ministerial council, no demilitarisation paper from the British government, no human rights or equality agenda."

Mr Ferris said it was the party's view that this was because the British and Irish governments, and particularly the British, had allowed unionists to obstruct the implementation of the Belfast Agreement at every stage.

Many republicans and nationalists believe unionists do not want to share power, he said, and the planned review in September had to be seen in this context.

"Sinn Fein will judge the review on whether or not we believe it can make a difference. We have not yet concluded our deliberations on this matter," he said.

"But I have to say that there are many who are sceptical and see this an exercise in providing unionists with another opportunity to try and renegotiate the Good Friday agreement."