Clinton Urges Irish Factions to Implement Pact

WASHINGTON —  On a sunny but troubled St. Patrick’s Day, President Clinton made a personal plea Wednesday to Irish leaders to awaken the spirit that brought them a peace agreement last year so they can resolve the differences that have blocked its implementation.

As the first anniversary of the Good Friday agreement approaches, recent violence--the car-bombing Monday that killed a Roman Catholic civil rights lawyer and the slaying Wednesday of a former Protestant guerrilla--cast its shadow on the British province. The key stumbling block, disarming the extremists, remains.

Clinton used every bit of Irish heritage available--from pipe-and-drum bands to the good luck symbolism of a bowl of shamrocks presented by Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern--to pressure visiting leaders of Northern Ireland’s majority Protestant and minority Roman Catholic communities into taking the final steps that would lead to peace.

Officials familiar with the dispute said the president’s aim was more to rekindle a mood of trust among the parties than to press for a specific breakthrough.

“They were very good and very constructive meetings,” James Steinberg, deputy national security advisor, told reporters after Clinton conferred separately with the leaders of the Northern Ireland factions.

“These were not negotiation sessions,” Steinberg said. “The president didn’t offer any specific proposals. . . . The meetings were certainly constructive, but the proof will be in the next few weeks whether the process moves forward.”

One West European diplomat noted: “The idea is to recapture the positive spirit so they can go back and get through this last residual problem. There’s no dramatic breakthrough coming here.”

With that approach apparently in mind, Clinton said to Ahern and other visitors in a sun-dappled White House Rose Garden:

“To fully implement the Good Friday accord, the parties simply must resolve their differences, and to do it they have to have the same spirit of cooperation and trust that led to the first agreement. They must lift their sights above the short-term difficulties. They must see that distant horizon when children will grow up in an Ireland trouble-free and not even remember how it used to be.”

Later, he presented former Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Maine), who brokered the peace pact, with the Medal of Freedom.

Ahern’s presentation to the president of a bowl of shamrocks--a traditional gift on a day of traditions--prompted Clinton to say: “With the year ahead . . . we are very much in need of them.”

The still-towering obstacle posed by disarming the gunmen--”decommissioning,” in the parlance of the province--”shows that there is still a serious deficit of trust which we must now strive to overcome,” Ahern said.

The key to the puzzle, he said, lies in giving each side “the necessary political space which will dispose of this last remaining difficulty.

“We have all come too far to let this apparent impasse undo the enormous progress that has been made. And failure is not an option,” the prime minister said.

Clinton played a similar role a year ago in building trust across Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide.

Although the Irish Republican Army accepted a cease-fire in connection with that historic pact, its political wing, Sinn Fein, says the agreement does not require disarmament before Northern Ireland’s new executive takes power.

The IRA argues that disarmament would leave it defenseless against Protestant paramilitary groups as well as any possible future crackdowns by British authorities. The IRA hard-liners’ motto about disarmament--”never”--was reinforced by the death Monday of Rosemary Nelson, a prominent Catholic civil rights lawyer, in a car bombing. It was apparently carried out by a Protestant splinter group that refuses to accept the Good Friday accord.

In comments to reporters Wednesday, the leader of the largest Protestant-dominated party, David Trimble, underscored demands that IRA disarmament is a prerequisite for the launch of the new, all-party executive that would return self-rule to Northern Ireland for the first time in a quarter of a century.

“When does it dawn on this small handful of militarists that peace does mean an end to what they’ve been doing for the last 30 years?” Trimble asked.

Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, said he does not have the power to order IRA hard-liners to disarm.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster contributed to this report.