Ex-US diplomat starts talks on flashpoint issues in N. Ireland

Former US diplomat Richard Haass began talks in Belfast on Tuesday on how to resolve disputes over flags and parades, which have caused severe rioting in Northern Ireland in the past year.

Haass was called in by the Northern Ireland Executive after the main political parties failed to reach agreement on these issues and other legacies of the Troubles, the three decades of sectarian unrest which largely ended in 1998.

After arriving from New York for the first round of negotiations, the former US envoy to the province said rioting earlier this year had shown that the improvement of community relations could not be taken for granted.

“There’s been tremendous progress but that said, there is still a real need to move things forward and that is again why we are here,” Haas told reporters.

“I think this last summer was something of an indication or something of a warning that one should not take the improvements for granted.

“One has to embed it and one has also to broaden it and there’s obviously unresolved issues and unresolved tensions or again you wouldn’t have had the violence you had this summer, and you wouldn’t have had these lingering and persistent political differences.

“And I think the five parties recognise that.”

The rioting was the worst in Northern Ireland for years as community tensions over the marching season, when Catholic republican and pro-British Protestant groups hold parades, spilled out onto the streets.

Violent protests also took place in December over a decision by Belfast City Council to restrict the number of days that the British flag was flown at City Hall.

Haass has been asked to produce recommendations by the end of the year “on parades and protests, flag, symbols, emblems and related matters stemming from the past that will…make the peace more resilient going forward”, according to the terms of reference.

He follows a tradition of US involvement in Northern Ireland, after former US senator George Mitchell won widespread praise for chairing the negotiations that led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

That deal largely brought an end to three decades of fighting between the Catholic and Protestant communities, although sporadic attacks and violence continue.