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Writing Peace: The National Archives of the UK (TNA)

Record of a meeting between Peter Westmacott and Nancy Soderberg on 20 July 1996

Monday, 22 July 1996

i31091

This document details a meeting between Peter Westmacott, Counsellor in the British Embassy in Washington, and Nancy Soderberg, US Deputy National Security Advisor that took place on 20 July 1996. The reports detail a discussion between the two on tactics for future negotiations of Irish peace. Soderberg felt that the British and Irish Prime Ministers should lead discussion, while Westmacott expressed that it was best left to a neutral chairman. Soderberg proposed that the British Government re-establish dialogue with Sinn Féin, explaining that Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams wanted a meeting with British Prime Minister John Major. The two also discussed the possible extradition of Jimmy Smyth, a PIRA member who had fled to the US after escaping HM Prison Maze in 1983. Soderberg asked Westmacott about the possibility of a compromise, in which Smyth would be extradited at the end of a 60-day period unless PIRA [Provisional Irish Republican Army] restored the 1994 ceasefire. Westmacott said that he would reflect on the proposal, and expressed doubts about mingling foreign policy objectives with the functioning of the Supreme Court.

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