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

British Government detailed record of multi-party meetings on 30 October 1996

Wednesday, 30 October 1996

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This document details the meetings of the Irish Government and Labour Party presenting views on decommissioning on 30 October 1996. Nora Owen, the Minister for Justice, stated the Irish Government’s expected position with the addition of referencing the importance of independent international experts. Malachi Curran, of the Northern Irish Labour Coalition, gave the Labour Party’s position that smaller parties need to play a part rather than domination by “sectarian” parties. He asked why decommissioning had become a central issue when unavailability of arms did not prevent conflict in the past. Labour was nonetheless committed to decommissioning alongside dismantling paramilitary bodies. The record details an adjournment where Senator George J. Mitchell, Chairman of Plenary in the Peace Initiative, considered the DUP complaint over how many Irish delegates were in attendance. It was concluded there was no formal limit under Rule 28 but the two Governments should abide by voluntary limitation. The session resumed with 9 Irish supporters and 7 British supporters, which the DUP disagreed with due to the imbalance and rule interpretation. Owen sought to justify the difference as more Irish delegates were needed to respond to questions, but accepted to keep their usual limit to 5 officials. Mitchell set out that in the future the limit would be 3 plus 3 delegates for Parties and 3 plus 5 delegates for Governments. The afternoon meeting entailed official discussion of the British Government’s decommissioning paper, which the Irish sought to amend the Mitchell compromise to be about considering decommissioning rather than working towards it. However, the latter interpretation remained in the concluded text.

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

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