John Reid Quotes

The last months, weeks and days have seen accelerating discussions, involving the DUP for the first time, about a comprehensive agreement which would see all outstanding matters dealt with and the Good Friday Agreement implemented in full.

The Good Friday Agreement and the basic rights and entitlements of citizens that are enshrined within it must be defended and actively promoted by London and Dublin.

We have to make sure the Good Friday Agreement works.

I think we have a political and moral duty to do everything within our power to maintain the Good Friday Agreement.

Quite simply, I maintained contact with Sinn Fein and believed that there had to be a political, not a military, solution to the situation in Northern Ireland.

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998, paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.

The British Government and the Irish Government have accepted very clearly the Mitchell Report.

Northern Ireland still suffers from its past, and it will take generations to escape sectarianism and for violence to end totally. Nonetheless, it is in a different place now than during the Troubles, and it will not go back to the old days.

In coming to that agreement, my party had a clear philosophy throughout. In Northern Ireland, we should have institutions that respected the differences of the people and that gave no victory to either side.

The big missing part of the jig-saw is to get the assembly back up and running here in Northern Ireland, to get shared government back in business, that is my objective, and we await the IRA statement to see if this will trigger a new dawn.

My job now, as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is to take this process forward, and that I'm determined to do, whatever old clippings you dig out and whatever old quotes you put before me.

The Good Friday Agreement was an incredible breakthrough. But it's my view that the Hillsborough Agreement could see politics in the north come of age, and see us all move forwards on the basis of equality and partnership.

We have to show the E.U. and show Ireland that our commitment to the Belfast Good Friday agreement is absolutely unconditional.

I am concerned that there's a cavalier attitude to the Irish Peace Process. What poor memories some have; I remember only too well the bag searches, the bomb scares and deaths. As they say, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

It... is the best opportunity we've had in the last 25 years to bring about a settlement in Northern Ireland, and I think we should leave no stone unturned to achieve that.

It's an extraordinary thing, this tiny little province of Northern Ireland, where carnage happened. And I was part of it. I grew up in it.

If the British government is prepared to say that the Unionists will not have a veto over British government policy and that guns, vetoes and injustices will all be left outside the door, then there is no good reason why talks cannot take place in an appropriate atmosphere.

I believe we've spent many years trying to bring about talks which have all the Parties in Northern Ireland involved so that there'd be inclusive talks.

Well I think it has always been a mistake to reduce the peace process in Ireland to a decommissioning process.

Men, once enemies, are now jointly governing in Northern Ireland. And although there have been several hitches, by and large it's working well.

The people of Northern Ireland have sorted out my whole life.

The Good Friday/Belfast Agreement was a bilateral one between ourselves and Ireland and did not involve the E.U. at all. It just presupposed common E.U. membership as a facilitator of its successful operation.

It is neither my intention to depart from the route of John Garang nor to change the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

I've had very good meetings with Unionist leaders, Democratic Unionist Party, Ian Paisley and his team.

The really big challenge is delivering the social justice agenda in the Belfast Agreement, which hasn't been delivered.