IN THE FINAL STAGES OF EDITING A series of talks launched by Peter Brooke, Secretary of State for Northern in Ireland, which began in April 1991, and were carried on intermittently by Brooke and his successor, Patrick Mayhew, until November 1992.
Meetings between the British Government, the UUP and the DUP. Dates of meetings created from source material, but records of discussions not currently available to us.
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Bilateral Meeting between the Government Team and the Joint Unionist Delegation held in Parliament Buildings at 15:27 on 20 May 1991.
Conclusions of the Bilateral Meeting with the Unionist Delegations on 20 May 1991 at 1527
The Unionist delegations still stood by their paper of 13 June.
The opening Strand Two session in London might last for two or three days rather than one, if, as was envisaged in Strand One, each delegation was given the opportunity to present its position first and for other delegations to cross-examine them thereafter.
The Unionists would be looking for the Irish Government to say they would be prepared to consider an alternative to or replacement of Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution. If they were to do so then the Unionists would remove their vehement opposition to talking in Northern Ireland. Bilateral meetings could be useful after the first plenary.
The Secretary of State explained that the Unionist delegation would be free to meet either Government if they requested it and would not need to meet both together. The Minister of State commented that in the same way that the first meeting in London may last two to three days, so the last meeting in strand two which may be in Dublin might also need to go beyond one day to allow time for the Unionists to put their views to the two Governments in addition to the summing up of strand two issues.