By Amanda Ferguson
BELFAST (Reuters) – The architects of Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace deal urged the region’s leaders on Monday to find the courage to break a deep political stalemate, with former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern warning the alternative did not bear thinking about.
The 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which largely ended 30 years of sectarian conflict in which 3,600 died, has been overshadowed by the collapse a year ago of devolved power-sharing government in a dispute about post-Brexit trade arrangements.
At a conference at Queen’s University Belfast, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, who chaired the 1998 talks between Irish nationalists seeking a united Ireland and pro-British unionists, said peace was at stake.
“It is now, as it was then, for the current and future leaders of Northern Ireland to act with courage and vision, as their predecessors did 25 years ago … to preserve peace,” Mitchell said in an address that received a long standing ovation.
Mitchell, 89, has not spoken at a major public event in three years due to leukaemia treatment.
Addressing current leaders, former British prime minister Tony Blair said: “You know in your heart of hearts what the right thing to do is and you should just get on and do it.”
Like U.S. President Joe Biden, who brought a similar message to Belfast last week, most speakers were careful not to criticise the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which is boycotting the local assembly.
Ireland’s Ahern appealed directly to the DUP to move, saying the “people of Northern Ireland need them”.
“We don’t even want to think about” the alternatives, Ahern said.
(Additional reporting by Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries; Editing by Alison Williams)
