Britain tries to end N. Irish impasse

Mandelson: "Are both sides prepared to persevere with the uncertainty of change?"

LONDON, England -- Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary has called on Protestant politicians and the IRA to end an impasse in the peace process.

Peter Mandelson made his appeal in a newspaper article hours after the killing of a Protestant man, and a bomb attack on a police station.

Mandelson will also meet Irish Republic Foreign Minister Brian Cowen on Thursday as part of a diplomatic attempt to get the peace process back on track.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to hold talks on Thursday with South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa and Finland's Martti Ahtisaari, who have inspected IRA weapons' dumps twice.

The 1998 Good Friday peace agreement established a power-sharing, home-rule government representing the Protestant majority and Roman Catholic minority but it has been repeatedly beset by crises since its inception.

The latest crisis pits First Minister David Trimble, who is also the head of the Protestant-backed Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), against Sinn Fein -- political ally of the Irish Republican Army -- and the moderate Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party.

At a meeting of the UUP's 860-strong ruling council last week Trimble said he would ban Sinn Fein ministers from participating in All-Ireland Ministerial Council (AIMC) meetings until the IRA re-engaged with a disarmament commission.

The AIMC was set up as part of the Good Friday agreement to enhance co-operation between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

"We have got to get round the current impasse," Mandelson wrote in an article in Britain's Times newspaper.

"But if we are to do that two things must happen: the ban on Sinn Fein ministers attending North-South meetings must be lifted; and the IRA must re-engage properly with (the disarmament commission).

"It is not a matter of one or the other. It is both."

A 26-year-old man was shot dead in a Protestant area on the outskirts of the British province's capital Belfast on Wednesday night, police said.

"It is believed two armed and masked men forced their way into a first floor flat using a sledgehammer. The victim who was in the flat with his girlfriend was shot several times in the head," a police spokesman said.

It was the fourth killing in Northern Ireland since Saturday. Political sources have linked all four to feuding between Protestant paramilitary groups in north Belfast.

Witnesses at the scene identified the latest victim as a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

Feuding between the UVF and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and their allies, the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), has now resulted in seven men being killed in the last four months.

Earlier a policeman was seriously wounded by a booby-trap bomb at a police station in Castlewellan, about 25 miles (40 km) south of Belfast. The bomb, hidden in a traffic cone, was triggered when officers entered the building.

Police blamed the attack on "republican terrorists."

The IRA and other paramilitary groups are observing ceasefires to give the politicians a chance to seal a lasting peace after 30 years of strife that has claimed 3,600 lives.

But armed dissidents on both sides of the Protestant-Roman Catholic sectarian divide have launched sporadic attacks that have threatened the peace process.

Northern Ireland has about 900,000 Protestants, most of whom support continued union with Britain, and about 600,000 Catholics who want closer ties with the Irish Republic.

Reuters contributed to this report.

'Republican terrorists' blamed for N. Irish bomb
November 1, 2000
N.Ireland leader Trimble accused of "provocation"
October 29, 2000
IRA confirms arms dump inspections
October 26, 2000

Northern Ireland Assembly
Northern Ireland Office
Sinn Fein
Ulster Unionist Party

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