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Crisis over UDP involvement in peace talks

The outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters said it had been involved in recent sectarian killings but denied that it played a role in the murder on Friday of a Catholic man, Liam Conway, in Belfast.

Mr Conway's death brings the number of Catholics killed in the past month to seven. Two Protestants have also died in the tit-for-tat shootings.

Political crisis

The Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam has told the UDP it may lose its seat at Northern Ireland peace talks after the paramilitaries admitted breaking their ceasefire.

Ms Mowlam said: "The UDP may want to explain themselves further, but it will be for the two governments (in London and Dublin) to decide what action to take in light of what is said," she added.

Major backing

But the former British Prime Minister John Major has warned against removing the UDP from the peace talks despite its links with the UFF.

Mr Major, one of the architects of the process, told the BBC that morally the UDP should be thrown out, but in the interests of peace it might be better for them to remain in the talks.

He said the talks were at a very critical stage and the expulsion of the UDP could precipitate a collapse of the peace process. "Every action has a reaction in Northern Ireland," he said.

"Bloody business"

Mr Major urged the main parties involved in the Northern Ireland peace talks to concentrate on the substantive agenda and not let the process be derailed by violence on the fringes.

He said: "If this peace process were to break down entirely and return to widespread violence then very many people's lives may be at stake for quite a long period."

He explained that there was nothing unexpected or surprising about the current difficulties surrounding the talks. "Making peace is a 'bloody business'," he said.

Tory differences

Meanwhile, Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Andrew Mackay has repeated his demand for the UDP to be thrown out of the peace talks.

"You can't allow people to stay in the talks who have openly admitted murdering innocent people," he said.

Denying his view differed from Mr Major's, he said he understood the former Prime Minister's point to be that the only way the UDP could be removed was after discussion with other parties at the talks.

Urging caution

Liberal Democrat Northern Ireland spokesperson Lord Holme said: "John Major is right to urge caution on the Government in considering the obvious course of outright expulsion of the UDP from the talks, both because the UFF have pulled back from the brink and because the UDP leadership has so far played a constructive role in the talks themselves."

The deputy leader of the republican SDLP, Seamus Mallon, said the Government had so far "run away" from the problem and it appeared it wanted to sweep the whole thing under the carpet.

He said there was a terrible cloud over the talks, one of suspicion and almost disbelief "that those with whom we have sat for so long within Castle Buildings (Stormont) are actually associated closely with the people who carried out these horrific murders".

Both the British and Irish governments are remaining silent about what they plan to do when the talks move to London for three days next week.

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We will stay in talks - Sinn Fein (19 Jan 98 | UK)

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