AP News, March 3rd, 2007
Sinn Fein's decision to begin cooperating with the Northern Ireland police has boosted peacemaking and made it more likely that Protestant hard-liner Ian Paisley will agree this month to share power, the chief negotiator for the IRA-allied Sinn Fein said Friday.
Deputy Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness told the annual conference of his party, which represents most Catholics in Northern Ireland, that the Jan. 28 vote to dump the group's anti-police policy had opened up "a time of great hope. A time of great opportunity."
Ian Paisley, whose Democratic Unionist Party represents most of the north's British Protestant majority, says he will lead a Catholic-Protestant administration only if Sinn Fein fully cooperates with police. He has refused to commit to a British government deadline for his party to form a Cabinet alongside Sinn Fein by March 26.
Traditionally, Sinn Fein instructed supporters to shun police and seek help from members of the outlawed Irish Republican Army instead. But the IRA renounced violence and disarmed in 2005, moves that have helped increase the Sinn Fein vote in Catholic parts of Northern Ireland.
An election Wednesday in Northern Ireland will fill all 108 seats in the province's assembly, which wields the power to form or block power-sharing. The top two vote-winning parties _ widely expected to be the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein _ would be entitled to the top two positions and most of the other administration posts.
McGuinness is Sinn Fein's choice to sit atop the next power-sharing Cabinet alongside Paisley.
"Our political opponents have in recent days continually expressed their belief that a power-sharing government headed by Ian Paisley and myself could not work. I believe that their real fear is that such an arrangement just might succeed," he said.
