Britain Calls Off Talks on Ulster’s Future : Politics: Two months of discussions among various Northern Ireland factions produce little of consequence.

LONDON —  The top British official for Northern Ireland admitted to Parliament on Wednesday that the talks among the various political parties in Ulster are effectively dead for now.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Brooke told the House of Commons that the two-month-long battle over procedural issues was “beginning to inhibit our ability to make further substantive progress” and that he had decided to end the talks.

The discussions over the future of the British-ruled province began at Belfast’s Stormont Castle on April 30 among Protestant unionists and Roman Catholic republicans. But the talks were slowed by arguments over venues and who would preside as chairman of the discussions.

“While I am naturally disappointed at this moment that (the) current process has to end,” said Brooke, “foundations have been laid for progress in the future, which neither cynics nor the men of violence will be able to undermine.”

An announcement was also made in Belfast following a brief meeting Wednesday involving Brooke and the leaders of the four main Northern Ireland factions: James Molyneaux of the Ulster Unionist Party and the Rev. Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party, both Protestants; John Hume of the Roman Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party, and John Alderdice of the non-sectarian Alliance Party.

Brooke said he would like to explore the possibility of finding terms on which fresh discussions could be held. But no one expects the talks to be revived in the near future. Brooke might try again in the fall, sources said, or wait until after the next general election in Britain.

None of the political leaders involved made any immediate comment, but political observers said recriminations were bound to come over who was most at fault for not getting the peace talks off the ground.

The talks among the Northern Ireland factions--the first in 16 years--had been scheduled to last 10 weeks, then shift into a second phase involving talks between the Ulster factions and the Irish Republic government, and finally move to meetings between the Irish and British governments.

Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, the legal political arm of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, said Wednesday that his party “views the Brooke talks as a wasted opportunity in that it did not address the core issues creating conflict in the north. . . .”

But Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey said: “The vast majority of people of both traditions profoundly desire that the process begun in recent weeks should continue.”

BACKGROUND

Ireland’s struggle to maintain national identity and independence dates from its conquest by England in the early Middle Ages. It was ruled as a separate kingdom under the British crown and, after 1800, as an integral part of Britain. A powerful revolutionary movement first proclaimed the Republic of Ireland during the Easter Week insurrection of 1916. In 1921, it won a measure of success when the island was partitioned into an independent republic in the south and the British-ruled north. The struggle persists between the 500,000 republicans, mainly Roman Catholic, who wish to unite with Ireland, and the 1 million unionists, mostly Protestants, who prefer British rule. Since 1969, the conflict has taken 3,000 lives in Northern Ireland.