I.R.A. agrees to discuss truce

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33563, 18 June 1974, Page 17

I.R.A. agrees to discuss truce

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright > BELFAST, June 17. The Irish Republican Army has agreed to meet Northci Ireland Protestants to discuss a three-month truce in th sectarian violence which has brought more than 1000 dead ii the province since 1969.

The agreement came from the Provisional wing of the 1.R.A., an outlawed guerrilla force which draws much of its support from Roman Catholics.

The Provisionals have been waging a bomb and ■ bullet campaign to smash : Northern Ireland’s link with Britain and unite the mainly ; Protestant province with the (predominantly Roman Cath- ■ olic Irish republic. 1 Seamus Loughran, a leader ■of Sinn Fein, regarded as the political arm of the 1.R.A., said in Dublin that the Republican movement would not be found wanting in its willingness to talk. The I.R.A.'s response came i as Northern Ireland Protesitants prepared for a threeday conference in Belfast to discuss a truce plan sub-

'mitted by the Ulster Defence Association (U.D.A.), a Protestant paramilitary group. The U.D.A. is to meet with representatives of other Protestant factions including ’ the Ulster Volunteer Force (U.V.F.) and the Red Hand, a commando force. The U.D.A. cease-fire plan is aimed at testing sincerity on both sides ... if the truce is honoured, there will (then be talks for a lasting i peace. A main point of the plan is that professional politicans on both sides of the ’Protestant • Roman-Catholic (sectarian barrier will be left out of the talks. “The feeling is that the politicians have had five years to solve the problems and they have not done it,” a U.D.A. spokesman said.

Another U.D.A. spokesman ' said that his organisation accepted the need tor greater power-sharing between j the two communities and did not want to return to the ’days when Northern Ireland I was ruled by a Protestantibased Government. Despite this, a strike by i Protestants last month toppled Northern Ireland's first I attempt at a power-sharing administration and the province is currently under ’direct rule by Britain.