BRITAIN-IRELAND-NIRELAND-DISARMAMENT

(FILES) Sinn Fein chief negotiator Martin McGuinness answering journalists' question during a press conference in London, 26 February 1998. Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), had asked for a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair after being excluded from the all party peace process talks.The British and Irish governments welcomed 04 October 2006 a report that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) has eschewed terrorism, saying it paves the way for a final political settlement in Northern Ireland. Under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement aimed at ending decades of troubles in the British-ruled province on the island of Ireland, a power-sharing self-rule assembly was set up in Stormont castle in Belfast. But the assembly was suspended in 2002 following allegations of an IRA spy ring operating at the Stormont parliamentary buildings, and the province has been under direct rule from London ever since. AFP PHOTO GERRY PENNY/FILES (Photo by GERRY PENNY / AFP) (Photo by GERRY PENNY/AFP via Getty Images)