Reynolds warns of losing ground

ground if the IRA decides to reject the Downing Street peace

declaration.

''The joint declaration in its origins was essentially an Irish peace

initiative,'' Mr Reynolds said in his latest appeal to Sinn Fein to

accept the declaration.

''Nobody should succumb to the dangerous illusion that there is much

more that can be offered at this stage of the peace process. Democratic

governments will not be influenced by the threat of continued violence.

The Irish people, north and south, deserve and want peace now without

further preconditions,'' he said.

Mr Reynolds was speaking after being presented with the European of

the Year Award 1993, by the Irish branch of the European Movement.

The Premier shared the award with Mr John Hume, the leader of the

Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland.

They received the award from former EU Commissioner, Mr Ray MacSharry,

for their peace initiative in Northern Ireland.

Both Mr Reynolds and Mr Hume are pressing Sinn Fein to give its

response to the declaration at its annual conference which is to be held

in Dublin at the end of this month. This conference will take place the

week after Mr Reynolds meets the Prime Minister, Mr John Major, in

London to assess the likely reaction of the IRA.

Mr Reynolds said yesterday that he remains ''absolutely confident''

that a large political leap forward can be achieved in Ireland as a

consequence of an IRA cessation of violence.

''We all earnestly hope that the Republican movement will make the

enlightened decision to take the first step on the road to peace,'' he

said.

According to Mr Reynolds, Sinn Fein had been given clarification of

the agreement, in which he disposed of many alleged contradictions

between the two governments.

Mr Reynolds said he had refuted Sinn Fein's claim that Mr Major had

said no to a united Ireland. What Mr Major had said was that there could

not be a united Ireland without majority consent -- the same view as

shared by the Irish Government.

Mr Reynolds also said that some of the demands now being made by Sinn

Fein to scrap or radically modify the requirement of consent by the

Ulster Unionists would effectively repudiate the 1985 British-Irish

agreement.

As far as review of sentences of IRA prisoners and the process of

demilitarisation in Northern Ireland were concerned, discussions on

these matters could only begin when violence ceased, he added.

Mr Hume said that the European Union provided the Irish of both

nationalist and Unionist tradition with a model to resolve conflict, and

to build institutions which were based on respect for diversity.