British-Irish summit

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34087, 26 February 1976, Page 17

British-Irish summit

(N.Z.P. A.•Reuter —Copijrightt

LONDON, February 26. The Prime Ministers of Britain and the Irish Republic will meet in London next month for talks certain to be dominated by the Northern Ireland problem and clans to combat the terrorist guerrillas of the provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army.

It was announced yesterday that the Irish leader, Mr Liam Cosgrave, had accented an invitation from his British counterpart, Mr Wilson, to have discussions in London on March 5.

Their meeting will be held

against the grim background of continuing guerrilla bombings in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic, and England, and the predicted collapse of the attempts to obtain Protestant-Roman Catholic agreement on some form of partnership government for (the strife-tom British-ruled province of Ulster. The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention, which] [has been struggling with little hone of finding some (agreed formula, is due to wind up formally a few days before the British-Irish summit meeting. Mr Cosgrave is expected to sound out Mr Wilson’s intentions on Northern Ireland's future, and it is

thought that he mav press for some fresh political initiative.

Both governments fear that a Convention failure might well signal an escalation of violence bv the I.R.A. and its rival Protestant paramilitary organisations. Closer anti-terrorist cooperation between the two governments, and particularly between their security forces on both sides of the (Irish border, is another issue certain to be raised. The two leaders are also likely to define their attitudes to an unpublished report bv the Euronean Commission of Human Rights on allegations that British security forces in Northern Ireland tortured Irish Republicans interned (without charge or trial.