Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, could be called in to break the impasse between Northern Ireland’s two largest political parties after a fruitless night of talks between Gordon Brown and his Irish counterpart, Brian Cowen.
Sinn Féin said that US intervention may be necessary as negotiations resumed at Hillsborough Castle in an attempt to rescue the power-sharing institutions.
Conor Murphy, a Sinn Féin minister, said this morning: ”Certainly the Americans are keeping a very close watching brief on this. I know she [Mrs Clinton] has spoken to people involved.” Sources from Ms Clinton’s office confirmed that she had been in touch with those involved in the negotiations.
Mr Murphy added: “This needs to be sorted out within hours, not days.”
What? Will we be in trouble?
Maybe:
Almost 12 years after the Good Friday agreement marked the high-water mark of the peace process, the complex and costly edifice of government in Northern Ireland apparently teeters and threatens to fall yet again.
Nobody could have predicted the bizarre revelations — the First Minister’s wife’s toyboy and the Sinn Féin leader’s paedophile father — that have helped to sweep the Province towards the rocks, but it will come as no surprise that the roots of the latest crisis are deep.
...The technical reasons for the rupture merely disguise the mutual antipathy that exists between parties whose political goals — Irish unity on the one hand, strengthening the union with Great Britain on the other — are irreconcilable.
irreconcilable.
Remember that.
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