[Mb-civic] IRA Says It Will Abandon Violence - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

<>IRA Says It Will Abandon Violence
Shift Follows Decades Of N. Ireland Conflict

By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 29, 2005; Page A01

LONDON, July 28 -- The Irish Republican Army formally declared an end 
Thursday to its three-decade-long armed struggle against British rule in 
Northern Ireland and pledged to pursue its aims of a united Ireland 
through "exclusively peaceful means."

British and Irish leaders said they hoped the statement, brokered in 
negotiations between the IRA's political representatives and officials 
in London and Dublin, would revive the province's stagnant peace process 
and bring a final end to sectarian violence known as "the Troubles" that 
has killed more than 3,600 Catholics and Protestants since 1969.

The IRA has never made such an affirmative commitment to long-term peace 
and reconciliation, though it declared a cease-fire in 1997. British 
Prime Minister Tony Blair called the statement "a step of unparalleled 
magnitude," and White House spokesman Scott McClellan called it 
"potentially historic." But both said it must now be followed by 
concrete action.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072800427.html?nav=hcmodule

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20050729/5bff9d1e/attachment.htm