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Writing Peace: The National Archives of the UK (TNA)

Statement by Peter Brooke in Response to the PIRA Christmas Ceasefire

Saturday, 01 December 1990

i23262

This document contains the text of a statement from Peter Brooke welcoming the Christmas ceasefire announced by PIRA on 23 December 1990 and expressing the hope that it signaled that further talks would take place in 1991. Parts of the document are slightly faded, but the text is largely legible.

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STATEMENT BY THE RT HON PETER BROOKE MP,
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND

Christmas should be a season of peace the world over. At the end of the year in which the momentous changes in Europe have shown the scope for new political development, a ceasefire in Northern Ireland albeit brief is a welcome epilogue to 1990 and may be a pointer to achieving a lasting solution in 1991. This is, of course, too late to be of any comfort to families facing Christmas without a loved one as a result of terrorist action. There could, however, be no better news on the eve of the New Year than that the message that terrorism cannot be allowed to succeed may have taken root and that recognition has dawned that there is no future for terrorism. If this ceasefire signals a more prolonged renunciation of violence, then the importance of dialogue as part of the democratic tradition is reinforced. It may be that there will be a chance in 1991 to set about resolving what some have thought intractable problems. If this is to be so, it will call for imagination and perserverence in all the peoples of these islands.