Sinn Fein Asks IRA for New Truce

The tantalizing prospect of an end to sectarian bloodshed arrived suddenly Friday in divided Northern Ireland, with signs of an imminent cease-fire by the Irish Republican Army.

In a surprise announcement, political allies of the IRA said they had asked the terrorists to lay down their arms and were confident of a positive response.

“The IRA leadership assured us that they would respond without delay to our request,� said Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the outlawed group of Irish nationalists who want to unite the British province with the neighboring Irish Republic.

The Sinn Fein initiative represented a clear breakthrough in the tortured search for peace, analysts in Belfast said Friday night, but they cautioned against premature celebration. Peace hopes have been repeatedly overwhelmed by renewed violence: The latest cease-fire, an 18-month truce, ended with an IRA bombing that killed two men in London in February 1996.

The British and Irish governments offered expressions of cautious hope after Adams’ announcement Friday. In Washington, the State Department welcomed the move. But reaction from leaders of the majority Protestant community in Northern Ireland ranged from polite disbelief to outright disdain.

Adams’ announcement came as a surprise because a spiral of violence by IRA and Protestant terrorists has quickened in recent weeks, including the killing of two policemen, bombings and street clashes. On Friday, mourners in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, attended the funeral of Bernadette Martin, an 18-year-old Roman Catholic woman shot to death earlier this week as she slept in the house of her Protestant boyfriend.

“I have made it clear over the 18 months since the collapse of the peace process that I would only approach the IRA to restore their cessation if I was confident that their response would be positive,� Adams said Friday in Dublin.

A Sinn Fein statement said Adams and the party’s chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, “provided a detailed report and assessment . . . and [have] urged the IRA leadership to restore its cessation of August 1994.�

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Adams maintains that Sinn Fein speaks for the IRA but is not part of it. The British government, however, sees no distinction between Sinn Fein and the IRA. It is unthinkable, British sources said, that the IRA would reject Adams’ request.

Analysts believe that an announcement of a new cease-fire is only a question of timing, and some were surprised it did not come Friday night. The IRA usually releases policy statements to Irish national radio and television in communiques dictated by a fictional press officer named P. O’Neill.

Britain demands an IRA cease-fire, the renunciation of violence and an unconditional commitment by Sinn Fein to the democratic process as conditions for Sinn Fein’s entry to peace talks scheduled to resume Sept. 15. Adams says that Sinn Fein, as a democratic party, has no problem with those conditions.

Seeking to break an inherited impasse, the 10-week-old government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair says Sinn Fein can participate in talks if a cease-fire is in place for six weeks before they resume.

Pro-British parties representing the 60% Protestant majority in the province were not impressed by Adams’ remarks Friday. They have long demanded the surrender of IRA weapons before talks begin.

Blair, however, has agreed that weapons decommissioning can be negotiated as a parallel strand to political talks, embracing a proposal made last year by American mediator George J. Mitchell, former Democratic senator from Maine.

In urging the IRA to call a cease-fire, Adams said he was satisfied that the British and Irish governments were committed to holding unconditional “inclusive peace talks.�

David Trimble, the leader of Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, is one prominent skeptic.

“It is absolutely essential from our point of view that there are clear commitments to actual disarmament that will be endorsed by the British government, the Irish government and all the parties to the negotiations,� he said after a stormy meeting with Blair in London.

Robert McCartney, a member of Parliament and leader of the United Kingdom Unionist Party, dismissed the Sinn Fein cease-fire call: “It doesn’t mean anything. It is part of Sinn Fein-IRA tactics to get into talks without ever having to hand over weapons,� he said.

Janet Stobart of The Times’ London Bureau contributed to this report.