Foreign Policy of The Bill Clinton Administration - Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Clinton also sought to end the conflict in Northern Ireland by arranging a peace agreement between the nationalist and unionist factions. In 1998 former Senator George Mitchell–whom Clinton had appointed to assist in peace talks–supported an accord that became known as the Good Friday Agreement. It called for the British Parliament to devolve legislative and executive authority of the province to a new Northern Ireland Assembly, whose Executive would include members of both communities. Years of stalemate have followed the agreement, mainly due to the refusal of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), a nationalist paramilitary group, to decommission its weapons for some years and after that the refusal of the Democratic Unionist Party to push the process forward. Mitchell returned to the region and arranged yet another blueprint for a further peace settlement that resulted in a December 1999 formation of the power-sharing government agreed the previous year, which was to be followed by steps toward the IRA's disarmament. That agreement eventually faltered as well, although Clinton continued peace talks to prevent the peace process from collapsing completely. In 2005 the IRA decommissioned all of its arms and, in 2007, Sinn Féin expressed a willingness to support the reformed Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Power was restored to the Assembly in May 2007, marking renewed promise for the fulfillment of the Good Friday Agreement.