A breakthrough in the peace process is achievable if the British and Irish governments release their proposals on the future of the Belfast Agreement, Mr Gerry Adams said today.
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Adams: calling for proposals to be published
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As officials in London and Dublin weighed up the prospects of a deal ahead of next month's Assembly elections, Mr Adams made a fresh appeal to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and British Prime Minister Mr Blair to release their implementation plan for the Agreement.
On April 10th, Mr Blair and Mr Ahern put on hold plans to release their proposals because they were concerned an IRA statement was not clear enough on its future to restore the power-sharing Assembly and executive at Stormont.
But in an address to republicans in north Belfast commemorating the 1916 Easter rising, Mr Adams insisted "a deal is now do-able if there is the political will and if the dealmakers are prepared to move forward now.
"If the problem at the moment is genuinely about the need to restore confidence in the process then in my view there is enough in all of the statements and commitments contained in them to do this," he argued.
"In other words there is the makings of a deal. What are needed now are dealmakers. This brings us to the unionists. Do they want a deal at this time? Are there dealmakers in the UUP leadership?"
Speaking in the Ardoyne, Mr Adams said Sinn Féin was committed to the peace process and he believed the IRA was as well.
As the British and Irish Governments demanded more clarity from the IRA, he said Sinn Féin's negotiators had worked hard in recent days to break the deadlock.
"We are told that the problem lies in a lack of clarity in the IRA statement which is in possession of the two governments," Mr Adams said. "There is no lack of clarity in this statement. Maybe the problem is that it does not use the exact words prescribed by the British government but the statement is very clear about IRA intentions".
"It has also been welcomed by both governments as being positive and showing a desire to make the peace process work. Such an IRA statement and such a response from the two governments would have been unthinkable a decade ago," he said.
The Sinn Féin president challenged both governments to say what would be achieved by withholding their blueprint.
PA