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Britain in secret

talks with IRA

LONDON: Britain is using a former government minister as a go-between with the IRA in a last-ditch effort to persuade the guerrilla group to restore its ceasefire, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.

The newspaper said the talks being carried out by Conservative member of parliament and former Northern Ireland minister Michael Mates were sanctioned by Prime Minister John Major and began several weeks ago.

"The disclosure that the prime minister has authorised secret links with representatives of the terrorist leaders while the IRA continues its bombing campaign on the mainland will infuriate Unionist politicians," said the newspaper.

"It could also threaten the government's fragile majority in the House of Commons."

Major's Conservative Party, which is trailing badly in opinion polls and must call a general election by May 1997, has a one vote majority in the House of Commons and counts on the support of Northern Ireland's pro-British Unionist politicians.

The Sunday Times said senior British officials revealed the private talks were designed to help the republican movement understand the government's position.

"Our intelligence was that the republican movement was in the most fearful muddle, there was great confusion about what to do next and what the (British government's) intentions were," a senior security official told the newspaper.

The talks fly in the face of earlier British statements claiming there would be no further political contacts after the Irish Republican Army broke a 17-month ceasefire when a bomb in London's Docklands area on February 9 killed two people and caused millions of pounds (dollars) worth of damage.

Britain's was braced for more IRA attacks following a failed attempt by the guerrilla group to blow up a major London road bridge across the Thames river last Wednesday.

It was the sixth attack in a campaign which so far has claimed three lives, including an IRA bomb-carrier.

Britain has barred Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, from participating in Northern Ireland peace talks on June 10 unless the guerrilla group restores the ceasefire and ends its 25-year war to oust Britain from the province.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said on Saturday the peace talks would be doomed if his party was refused seats.

Adams's comments were seen as the opening shots in what promises to be a tense political campaign in Northern Ireland leading to May 30 elections, after which parties will select negotiators for the June talks.-Reuter