Letter: Gesture for peace

Sir: Maybe the best way to solve the logjam over IRA decommissioning is for Britain to take its natural place on the highest moral ground.

The IRA refuses to hand in weapons because they see this as surrender and humiliation. But what but such confusion would you expect from them? The IRA are only terrorists: I know this because I read it in the British press. The people who brought you Bloody Sunday, by contrast, are Security Forces.

Since the latter are so much more honourable than the IRA, let them lead the way on surrendering weapons too (just on a token, symbolic basis, of course). After all, Tony Blair told the IRA that their decommissioning would be not surrender, but a declaration of the victory of peace.

THOMAS HUTCHISON McFADDEN

Pembroke College,

Oxford