The United States special envoy to Northern Ireland Mr Richard Haass today called for an end to all "private armies" after claiming there was no crisis in the peace process.
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Richard Haass |
Mr Haass, who held a final round of meetings with the political parties before ending his role in the North, said he felt all sides were focused on how to make progress in the aftermath of last week's Assembly elections.
Richard Haass
He is due to travel to Dublin to hold talks with the Taoiseach and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, this afternoon.
Speaking after meeting the DUP Mr Haass said: "My sense in coming over, and it has been reinforced by all these meetings, is that there is not a crisis. On the contrary this is what you would expect in the aftermath of an election. Now people are focused on how to move from where we are to the next step."
Having had breakfast with members of the Democratic Unionist Party which became the largest party in the Assembly, he said he did not interpret this as a rejection of the Belfast Agreement.
He said he believed unionists were frustrated at the lack of progress on issues such as IRA decommissioning.
"With all this progress Northern Ireland is still not where it should be. You shouldn't have private armies in the year 2003 in the middle of Europe. There is no place for that sort of thing."
Mr Haass said his chief frustration has been the suspension of the power-sharing institutions for more than a year.
He said he hoped that the review of the Belfast Agreement being undertaken by the governments would present an opportunity to break the deadlock.
But he added that any changes in the Agreement must be consistent with the fundamental principles of consent and power sharing and the need for political parties to reach across the divide.
He refused to say whether the electoral success of the DUP had been a minus or plus for the peace process.
"I'm always uneasy about characterising the results of elections because I respect democracy," he said.
"I would say clearly the DUP received significant support. It represented, in my view, in the unionist community a desire for change, some frustration with the status quo. I do not think it represented necessarily a rejection of the Good Friday Agreement."
While Mr Haass was having talks with members of the DUP including deputy leader Mr Peter Robinson, the Rev Ian Paisley said that his party would not be shedding any tears about him leaving his post.
Dr Paisley, who did not attend the talks, said he found Mr Haass had been very favourable to the IRA.
He said: "He was very favourable to keeping them in government even though they held on to their guns. I found his attitude totally disgraceful."
However Mr Robinson had described his meeting with the US ambassador as very useful adding that he had always found him courteous and interested in what the DUP had to say.
Mr Haass, asked about Dr Paisley's comments, said that he had not seen a transcript of the DUP leader's remarks and wasn't aware of them when he met Mr Robinson.
He added: "I had an extremely productive and constructive meeting with Mr Robinson and this process is a lot larger than personalities."