The Sunday Life claims the SDLP are open to a shadow assembly. This leaves Sinn Fein isolated but Gerry Adams remains in belligerent mood.
Ahern’s rhetorical shift from shadow to fully operative seems to have worked. Although the SDLP’s concerns remain they are willing to put their faith in Bertie Ahern. A senior SDLP source said:
“We believe that the Taoiseach knows our concerns and knows what we don’t want to see and we expect that he and Tony Blair will outline proposals that will see some real and meaningful engagement at Stormont that should lead to the creation of an Executive.”
Gerry Adams, has not left the belligerent mood in America, stating yesterday that:
“Several weeks ago, Sinn Fein resolutely opposed any halfway house, in-between, transitional, interim or shadow Assembly. That remains our position…The current approach of the governments to the restoration of the political institutions is a source of significant concern.”
Although as parties have been arguing for years what the Belfast Agreement actually means maybe this comment gives Sinn Fein some wriggle room:
“If there is to be an Assembly in the north, it has to be the Assembly contained in the Good Friday Agreement.”
Is it significant that for all the republican fury no one has mentioned the b-word?
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