In the subscription only Irish News, Martin McGuinness is certain that ‘the war is over’:
“Anybody who is a serious student of this process over the course of the last number of years can not come but to any other conclusion that a central strategy of what some unionist paramilitaries is at is to drag the IRA back to war. Now as a republican leader… I am very pleased that the IRA has not fallen into that trap. I think the peace process has to continue. Every effort has to be made to get the Good Friday Agreement back on track.”
He went on to talk about the ‘take over’ of the UUP in recent weeks by hardliners in the party. Suggesting that Jeffrey Donaldson remains close to the previous leader of the UUP:
“You can never get away from Lord Molyneauxs comments within hours of the IRA cessation of 1994 describing that as the most destabilising event since partition. Or Willie Rosss television interviews, when asked why he was opposed to the agreement, said he was opposed to powersharing and all-Ireland institutions”
And finally:
We have to very soberly look at the consequences of the political institutions coming down, and look at the prospect of it being some time before those institutions go up again. Because whether they like it or not the rejectionist unionists are going to have to accept the fact that the only show in town is the Good Friday agreement.”
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