BBC News | UK POLITICS | 'Delighted' Mandelson confident on disarming

BBC News Online: UK Politics

Thursday, 2 December, 1999, 10:00 GMT

'Delighted' Mandelson confident on disarming

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson has expressed his confidence that the IRA will disarm, as the Stormont assembly began its first day governing its own affairs.

But Mr Mandelson warned that if the republican paramilitaries did not decommission their weapons he would have no choice but to suspend the assembly.

The secretary of state was speaking the morning after the transfer of power for Northern Ireland from Westminster to the power-sharing assembly.

He said he was "absolutely delighted" by the devolution of power.

The Northern Ireland secretary later signed an agreement with Ireland's Foreign Minister David Andrews to establish bodies linking North and South.

Mr Mandelson told the BBC that all parties agreed that decommissioning was a voluntary act and there must be "no connotations of surrender" or humiliation.

He said: "I have made it clear that whilst decommissioning, like the unionists and others going into devolved institutions, while these are voluntary acts, nonetheless the obligation on all the parties to make sure each remit is fulfilled is very clear.

"That certainly goes for Sinn Fein as far as the IRA's decommissioning is concerned."

Mr Mandelson continued: "But if - and I'm not planning for failure, but obviously we make provision for it - if there is default in the case of decommissioning, just if there was default in the case of devolution too, I would have to step in along with the Irish government to suspend the operation of the institutions until that default was corrected."

But he hinted that all the groups involved would not have to suffer because of default by one party.

Mr Mandelson insisted there was an overwhelming desire for self-government to work and last.

The negotiations which led up to the devolution of power to the assembly had demonstrated how much each parties needed each other.

Mr Mandelson stressed that the Good Friday Agreement was irreplaceable and all the pro-agreement parties had agreed that decommissioning was an essential part of that.

He said: "For a generation, politicians in Northern Ireland have been denied power because they couldn't agree on how to exercise that power in a proper constitutional framework in which everyone's rights were assured.

"What we're creating this week is an opportunity of a generation in which local people are now being put back in charge of local affairs, and that's how it should be."

Related to this story:
Northern Ireland takes power (01 Dec 99 | Northern Ireland)
Mandelson reaps peace reward (29 Nov 99 | UK Politics)
Ireland's landmark change (01 Dec 99 | Europe)
Devolution 'giant step', says Blair (01 Dec 99 | Northern Ireland)
NI ministers start work (30 Nov 99 | Northern Ireland)

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