Unionist annoyance and nationalist satisfaction are likely to greet today's expected historic announcement by the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, inviting Sinn Fein into substantive talks at Stormont.
The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, marked his own awareness of the significance of the decision by instructing Dr Mowlam to postpone her announcement, due yesterday, so that it would not clash with his initiative on education yesterday.
Dr Mowlam has already strongly indicated that she accepts the IRA has met the six-week ceasefire period necessary to establish the integrity of its cessation and to allow Sinn Fein into substantive talks.
While the DUP and the UK Unionist Party in particular complain that the British government is reneging on its responsibilities to the Union, Dr Mowlam has insisted that bringing Sinn Fein into the mainstream political process is the best way forward. The Northern Secretary said she understood why unionists might be angered that Sinn Fein could be at talks without weapons being handed over. But she added: "Morally, I would prefer to sit down with someone who has a past rather than see other RUC men killed. That is the choice I would make. I hope others make it too." Dr Mowlam further aroused unionist indignation by stating that in the negotiations "the Union and a united Ireland are all on the table. Nothing is given away, nothing is taken". When asked would she be a persuader for the Union she replied: "I'll be a persuader for an accommodation. I will be a persuader for a fair and just outcome."
She added that with the Irish Government and the British government at the talks, it represented a "joint approach to facilitate, arbitrate, build, accommodate with the parties . . . In that way we are facilitators over mutual options".
Dr Mowlam said that while she viewed Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom she also saw it as "different". "I often think, as I sit around a table with politicians, they have in common something different from me coming from the mainland," she said.
