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Northern Ireland peace process talks end in deadlock after seven hours
Northern Ireland peace process talks end in deadlock after seven hours
(about 3 hours later)
All-night political negotiations in Belfast have failed to produce an agreement to deal with unresolved peace process issues in Northern Ireland.
Talks aimed at resolving the remaining contentious issues of the Northern Ireland peace process have broken up without a deal before Christmas.
Seven hours of intensive talks involving Stormont's five executive parties chaired by the former US diplomat Dr Richard Haass ended about 4am without the pre-Christmas agreement that the one-time White House special envoy to the region desired.
The chair, the US diplomat Richard Haas, is flying home without an agreement from the five main political parties sharing power at Stormont.
Haass, who has an end-of-year deadline to find consensus on disputes over flags, parades and the legacy of the Troubles, will now fly back for Christmas in the United States.
While the parties talked through the night into Christmas Eve they could not reach a deal although Haas and Harvard professor Meaghan O'Sullivan may return in the new year to host more negotiations.
But he said he and the talks co-chairwoman Dr Meghan O'Sullivan, a US foreign affairs expert, will consider returning next weekend if they believe a deal could yet be struck.
The talks hinged on a propsal for a new super investigative body that would probe into past Troubles crimes.
They will send questions to the parties from the US and, based on the answers, will produce another draft set of proposals, the fifth version created.
But the Guardian has been told that the Ulster Unionists objected to the new policing-the-past unit because ex members of the security forces could be arrested over incidents in the Troubles as well as loyalist and republican paramilitaries.
If the reaction from the parties to that new document suggests further progress can be made, Haass said he and O'Sullivan would fly back.
Haas and O'Sullivan were brought to Northern Ireland in July after the first minister, Peter Robinson, asked them to chair talks over flags, parades and unsolved crimes and other issues connected to 35 years of conflict.
Emerging from the meeting at the Stormont Hotel, Haass insisted the process was not dead. "I am not in the business of doing postmortems here because the patient is still alive," he said.
In a tweet this morning Haas said the talks had broken up without agreement but he hoped future discussions would succeeed.
However, Haass said there continued to be "significant differences and divisions" among the parties on all three issues being discussed.
Later outside the Stormont Hotel, Haas said: "I am not in the business of doing post mortems here because the patient is still alive."
While some progress has been made on parades and dealing with the past, there appears no prospect of an imminent deal on flags.
The Democratic Unionists, the UUP, Sinn Fein, the SDLP and Alliance discussed four separate plans, each of which were vetoed through days of talks.
"The work done on flags is quite disappointing by any measure," said Haass. "But the other two areas have been, I believe, quite impressive and I believe it would be a real shame not to be able to turn that work into a reality.
DUP Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson said: "Obviously I think everyone is disappointed that we are not having an agreement at this stage.
"We would like to think there is reason to return."
"But we have to be realistic - there remain significant issues of difference across all three areas that were under negotiation.
Appointed in the summer by the Democratic Unionist First Minister, Peter Robinson, and Sinn Fein's Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, to oversee the talks initiative, Haass has flown back and forth to the region, working up to a period of arduous negotiations over the past two weeks.
"I think with further effort we are capable of closing the gap but it just didn't happen tonight." />Sinn Fein's negotiator, Gerry Kelly, said the party's team had been mandated by its ruling executive to try to secure agreement in the meeting.
A crunch plenary meeting had been due to commence at 11am yesterday, but it did not get under way until just before 9pm last night, with the politicians having spent most of the day assessing Haass's fourth draft document.
"We are disappointed that we weren't able to do that," he said.
The exchanges ran through the night, with Haass pressing for a breakthrough before he had to travel to Dublin to catch a morning flight back across the Atlantic.
"Probably more important is that people watching this will be more disappointed if we can't bring this to some sort of conclusion in the few next few days and phases.
After the talks broke up without success, he said: "Let me be clear about this – we don't have an agreement, [but] in no way have we given up the possibility of still reaching an agreement before the end of the year.
"When it came to a deal, I think we could have done it, (but) we didn't manage to do it."
"We are not going to be able to put it underneath anyone's Christmas tree but we still have a week and if there is reason to return – I think we will have the answer to that question when we get the responses to a new draft that we will produce over the next few days – then both of us are willing to come back here, fly back here and give it one last push."
It is understood the politicians have effectively conceded that another forum will need to be established to examine issues around flags over a longer timeframe.
But if the fifth draft secures a breakthrough on the two other areas, it should pave the way for a replacement for the Parades Commission to rule on contentious marches by unionist and nationalist groups, and on a new mechanism to oversee dealing with the legacy of the past – potentially one offering limited immunity from prosecution to those who co-operate.
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