Adams’s peace offer to Blair on election victory
GERRY Adams wrote to Tony Blair on the very day his New Labour government swept to power, assuring him Sinn Féin would be ‘totally committed’ to bringing peace to Ireland, previously private correspondence between the two men shows.
Mr Adams and Mr Blair were among those noted for their roles in bringing about the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 after years of bitter conflict.
Documents on Anglo-Irish relations from Mr Blair’s first few days in office show Mr Adams was keen to signal his co-operation from the outset.
In a letter from the then Sinn Féin president to Number 10, marked May 2 1997, Mr Adams wrote: ‘Be assured that this [peace in Ireland] is a priority for me also and that Sinn Féin is totally committed to democratic and peaceful methods of struggle and to a negotiated settlement to the conflict in our country. The rebuilding of a credible peace process must be tackled without further delay.’
Mr Blair’s response, in a private letter released by the UK National Archives, appeared firm. ‘You and those you represent should also be in no doubt as to the government’s fundamental approach in seeking to promote reconciliation and overcoming the divisions which have contributed to conflict,’ he wrote.
‘It is fundamental that such negotiations can take place only among those committed to exclusively peaceful methods and who have shown that they abide by the democratic process.’