Martin McGuinness: The crisis in the Northern Ireland peace process
From a speech by the Mid Ulster MP to Sinn Fein's annual conference in Dublin yesterday
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Your support makes all the difference.Are we any further on? What have we to show for our efforts. Some might think - not a lot. I take a different view. But these are all legitimate questions ...
Yes, the current stalemate is a crisis, a dangerous crisis. But it is not a crisis that began one week ago outside a bar in Belfast. It is not a crisis around the IRA or IRA intentions.
The institutions have been suspended now for almost 18 months. This is the 4th suspension. In the same period the IRA have taken a number of initiatives to move the process forward, whereas both governments, and particularly the British Government, have failed repeatedly to deliver on their commitments. In the same period the securocrats have succeeded in stalling the process of change.
But that is all they have managed to do. They have not halted this process, nor have they reversed it. Nor will we allow them to.
We have negotiated, and campaigned and argued to have the Good Friday Agreement implemented not only because that is our obligation, not only because it is the right thing, but also because it fits into a strategy of providing and maintaining a political alternative to conflict, a means of sustaining and anchoring the peace process and a transition to the free independent Ireland we have worked long to achieve.
That is what our negotiations strategy is about. That is what we will continue to do. Sinn Fein is in this process to the end.
Our intention is clear.
Our intention is peaceful.
Our intention is to succeed.
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