The importance of partnership between London, Dublin and Washington was one of the clear lessons of the Northern Ireland peace process, the British Foreign Secretary has said. Mr Robin Cook was making a brief visit to Dublin at the weekend to meet other senior members of the Party of European Socialists (PES), a federation of labour and social democratic parties, which was holding its "summer university" at Trinity College. PES leaders met on Saturday to discuss plans for their congress in Berlin next May.
"Wherever I travel I discover that countries are keen to learn from our experience in Northern Ireland and to understand what it was we did that achieved the strong support for the peace process that we have secured," Mr Cook said.
It was a matter for other countries to decide whether there were lessons they could draw. "I would say that we greatly appreciated the strong international support which we have had for the peace process in Northern Ireland," Mr Cook said.
"One of the clear lessons for us is that it does take a strong partnership between London, Dublin and Washington, and that has been very critical to the success of the process. The other point I would stress is that we have made progress because we put the peace process, through direct consultation, in the hands of the people. The people wanted peace, and that is what has given it tremendous authority and momentum."
Mr Cook has also been active in the Middle East peace process. He held talks last Friday with one of the senior Palestinian negotiators, Dr Nabil Shaath, and tomorrow meets the acting Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shlomo Ben Ami.
"I know from our contacts that there is active discussion going on between both sides. It is important to recognise that real progress was made at Camp David. There was a lot of advance made on the major issues - refugees and security and territory - and there was some new creative thinking in relation to Jerusalem," he said.
Turning to the issue of EU enlargement, Mr Cook said: "The time may be coming when the European Union should look at setting targets to complete negotiations with those who are ready for membership, and that is an issue that we should keep before us in the coming months. A lot of progress has been made."
Asked how he saw the role of a small country like Ireland in the European Rapid Reaction Force, Mr Cook said: "Let us be clear: what we are proposing through the European security policy is not a territorial defence, it is a capacity to intervene in peacekeeping exercises of humanitarian dimensions."
On the single European currency, he said the position of the British government was clear. He continued: "In the lifetime of the next parliament we will carry out an economic assessment and if we believe that our five tests for membership of the single currency have been met and that it would be in the economic interests of our people to join, we will recommend membership in a referendum and the people will have the final say."