Hillary Clinton welcomes Northern Ireland deal (ITN News 2/5/10)

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Clinton invites Northern Ireland's leaders to US

The US is to invite Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness to Washington to discuss further American investment in Northern Ireland.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said they would also discuss "ways to build" on Friday's agreement on devolving policing and justice powers.

Mrs Clinton said Northern Ireland's leaders now had greater authority.

"The people of Northern Ireland are poised to build a thriving society on this stronger foundation," she said.

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BACKGROUND BRIEFING ON NORTHERN IRELAND  (State.gov)

Associated Press

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Irish National Liberation Army says it's disarmed

The INLA weapons surrender is expected to be confirmed Monday by the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, an expert panel that Britain and Ireland formed in 1997 to oversee the disarmament of several illegal groups based in the British territory of Northern Ireland.

The pace of paramilitary disarmament has picked up over the past year after Britain and Ireland announced their intention to shut down the commission this month. A law permitting paramilitary figures to hand over weapons without risk of prosecution is scheduled to expire Tuesday.

Disarmament commission spokesman Aaro Suonio said he could not confirm or deny whether the INLA had surrendered weapons recently.

From 2001 to 2005, the commission oversaw the gradual disarmament of the Irish Republican Army - by far the most elaborately armed group during the three-decade conflict over Northern Ireland. Two outlawed British Protestant groups, the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defense Association, have disarmed over the past year. The INLA is the last truce-observing group to make the move.

The INLA killed more than 110 people from its 1974 foundation to its 1998 truce. In the decade since, its members have killed or wounded more than two dozen people, mostly criminal rivals.

In October, the INLA announced it had renounced violence and would disarm.

The breakaway gang was born amid bloody internal feuding within IRA circles in the mid-1970s. INLA leaders proclaimed devotion to Marxism and hostility to the burgeoning political realism of some IRA leaders.

It sought to overtake the IRA as the major anti-British paramilitary group and, for several years, its high-profile killings did upstage the much larger IRA.

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(AFP) – 1 day ago  2/6/10

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday welcomed a new agreement between Northern Ireland and Britain as "another important step toward full and lasting peace."

The top US diplomat hailed the accord, which would transfer key remaining powers from London to Belfast, as pointing the way forward for the country.

"Today, Northern Ireland has taken another important step toward a full and lasting peace," she said in a statement.

"The accord they reached today will help consolidate the hard-won gains of the past decade."

The deal would see Northern Ireland assume responsibility for policing and justice from April 12 after a planned March 9 vote on the deal in the country's assembly, where the accord has broad support.

The British government has agreed to provide an extra 800 million pounds (1.25 billion dollars, 920 million euros) to fund the transfer of law and order powers on April 12.

Clinton reaffirmed US support for Northern Ireland and said the latest accord "points the way forward -- and not only for this one conflict."

"Northern Ireland gives us hope that, despite entrenched opposition and innumerable setbacks, diligent diplomacy and committed leadership can overcome generations of suspicion and hostility," she said.

Northern Ireland yesterday concluded a landmark agreement that will see local politicians given direct responsibility for policing and law and order for the first time in almost four decades.

The deal, hammered out over more than 10 days of marathon negotiations overseen by the British and Irish governments, averts the threatened collapse of the UK province's power-sharing institutions.

It is hoped the deal will further consolidate the peace process, which started when the Irish Republican Army turned away from violence in in the 1990s. The three decades of civil conflict claimed more than 3,000 lives.

Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, and Brian Cowen, his Irish counterpart, joined the parties yesterday at Hillsborough Castle to announce details of a package on policing and parades, proclaiming "a new spirit of mutual co-operation and respect".

The timetable envisages that local parties will take over legal responsibility for policing on April 12. The Northern Ireland assembly will vote on the issue on March 9, with a policing and justice minister nominated on Monday. The new justice minister is likely to be David Ford, leader of the non-sectarian Alliance party.

The US yesterday applauded Northern Ireland's new justice agreement and urged local political leaders to shoulder more responsibility for the province's future.

"Today, Northern Ireland has taken another important step toward a full and lasting peace," Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, said in a statement.

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