This article quotes a recent Gerry Adams interview where he adopts something close to the British line, that peace is not a necessary preliminary step to establishing a political process. This heavily criticises the British for stalling on peace, and presents the Irish government as in thrall to Westminster. By referring to his talks with John Hume (independent from these two governments), Adams portrays the PIRA as a serious and constructive political actor . Of course, Adams comes at this from a position of self-interest as his 'armalite and ballot box' strategy (in the face of improved British counter-insurgency) justifies the combination of politics with violence, given the need to justify the PIRA's strategic pivot with reference to the organisation's mythology. The British approach to talks a) remains committed to excluding violent actors (such as Adams). Adams has a point however, in that the British are cautious about the JDI (the peace initiative) given their fears of over-privileging the Joint Declaration Initiative and losing capital with constitutional unionists.
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