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This is an archive article published on November 19, 1999

Deadlock broken in N Ireland after IRA statement

BELFAST, NOV 18: US Mediator George Mitchell wraps up his painstaking review of the Northern Ireland accord on Thursday, with peace at la...

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BELFAST, NOV 18: US Mediator George Mitchell wraps up his painstaking review of the Northern Ireland accord on Thursday, with peace at last beckoning on the horizon after 30 years of sectarian strife and division.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) finally showed its hand on Wednesday, promising to appoint a go-between to supervise the handover of its vast cache of weapons.

After one of the most crucial weeks in Northern Ireland politics, it was a vital breakthrough. Unionists wedded to links with Britain and republicans pushing for Irish unity were at last able to talk of breaking the deadlock.

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Mitchell, who crafted last year’s Good Friday accord that tantalisingly offered the chance of lasting peace, was bowing out weary but elated after helping to shape an elusive formula to end one of the world’s longest-running guerrilla conflicts.

He was expected to hold a news conference to wrap up 11 laborious weeks of talks in the war-weary British province where 3,600 people have died and history is one long remembered yesterday on both sides of the sectarian divide.

But the stakes are still perilously high.

Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) chief David Trimble’s leadership is on the line — will his party make a leap of faith and trust the IRA pledges?

Some are dubious. “We haven’t heard that the so-called war is over,” complained Unionist Jeffrey Donaldson.

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Senior UUP negotiator Michael Mcgimpsey — a Trimble supporter — said: “Certainly the evidence is there that there has been a major step forward in terms of the IRA and in terms of the republican movement –we have a number of very major steps.”

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