Bruton makes 11th-hour peace proposals

DONALD MACINTYRE

and RUPERT CORNWELL

John Bruton, the Irish Prime Minister, yesterday launched an 11th-hour effort to revive the fading prospects of an Anglo-Irish summit before the arrival of President Bill Clinton this week. Mr Bruton wrote to John Major with with what Irish sources said were "fresh proposals" for a summit agreement. But although both Prime Ministers are likely to be in contact today, there was little immediate sign in London last night that Mr Bruton's latest letter would lead to breakthrough before Mr Clinton arrives in London on Wednesday.

The move came after Mr Major expressed his disappointment in a letter to Mr Bruton on Saturday night that two days of London talks involving Sir Robin Butler, the Cabinet Secretary, and Paddy Teahon, the senior civil servant in Dublin had failed to clear the outstanding roadblocks.

The summit was supposed to set up an International Commission on arms decommissioning which would run in parallel with preliminary and separate talks between the two governments and each of the Northern Ireland parties, including Sinn Fein, and lead eventually to all party talks next year. Downing Street would only say last night that they would study Mr Bruton's letter. But there were suggestions in London - sharply denied in Dublin - that Mr Teahon and Sir Robin had cleared up at least one outstanding issue on Friday - only to see the agreement unpicked when they were joined by officials from the foreign affairs and justice departments.

This was over British insistence that paramilitary arms should not be treated by the Commission as equivalent to those of the security forces. Last night this still remained an outstanding issue, along with British demands that the IRA hand over some of their weapons before all party talks.

Mr Bruton's move was disclosed by Dublin last night after Dick Spring, the Irish Deputy Prime Minister, warned against any assumption that President Clinton's visit to London, Dublin and Northern Ireland would break the impasse. Mr Spring said: "I don't think President Clinton has any tricks up his sleeve. He is not coming in that light, and it would be very unfair if either government expected him to offer the solution in the context of our present dilemma."

Whitehall sources insist they have been put under no pressure from Washington to tie up an agreement with Dublin before the President's arrival, and that Mr Major would not be joining Mr Clinton in Belfast on Thursday. Mr Clinton's aides are portraying the trip less as opening a new chapter in the search for peace than as a "celebration" of the 15-month old ceasefire in a part of the world where, as the President put it in his Saturday radio address, "bombs and bullets have given way to hope."

For at least the London segment of the President's trip, Northern Ireland has anyway been supplanted by Bosnia as the main topic of discussion.