N. Ireland Assembly likely to be suspended

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, AUG. 8. With no compromise in sight, the British Government was today faced with the hard choice of suspending the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont to buy more time for the peace process which went into a tailspin last month when the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) pulled out of the power-sharing arrangement demanding immediate decommissioning by IRA.

The Government has until Saturday to make a decision but with neither the Unionists nor the Republicans inclined to make concessions the time is running out and the Sinn Fein leader, Mr. Gerry Adams, today warned that the institutions created under the Good Friday Agreement were on the verge of collapse. He blamed the Unionists for it as a bitter war of words broke out between the two sides after the Unionists rejected the IRA's tantalisingly vague offer of decommissioning saying it does not go far enough for them to think of returning to the provincial government.

The UUP chief, Mr. David Trimble, resigned as head of the Government on July 1 to force decommissioning and the constitutional deadline of six weeks for the election of a successor ends on August 12. A successor cannot be elected unless the Unionists review their decision to stay out of the Government in which they share power with Sinn Fein, the political wing of IRA. They have made clear that they are no longer willing to work with Sinn Fein so long as IRA continues to hold on to its weapons.

The IRA's latest offer to put its arms ``completely and verifiably beyond use'' has not satisfied Unionists who want to see actual decommissioning start before they agree to return to the Government.

The republicans said Mr. Trimble was making a blunder by rejecting the offer and Mr. Adams warned that the crisis would deepen further. He said: ``I don't think any of us should underestimate the intensity of the crisis which is opening up. The reality is that the institutions (set up under the Good Friday agreement) are going to collapse in a very short time, given the management of the process at this point.''

Commentators saw his remarks as effectively ending hopes that IRA might be willing to improve upon its decommissioning offer.

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Section  : International
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