Interview with Denis Haughey, ex-chairman of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and a senior member of the SDLP team in peace talks.
Q: Could you introduce yourself? Are you still a member of the Northern Ireland parliament?
A: No, I was a member of the Northern Ireland parliament or assembly and I was a minister in the executive which was led by David Trimble and Seamus Mallon. I was a minister in the office of the first and deputy first minister.
Q: In the dispute with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan has said that is ready to give a high level of autonomy to Nagorno-Karabakh. What would you advise for this kind of dispute, based on the Irish example?
A: The first thing I need to make clear is that we cannot prescribe for the people of Armenia or Azerbaijan the kind of solution that you must seek. We can only describe the methods that we used or followed in order to arrive at a solution here. The first provision that we made was that all significant parties to the dispute had to be around the table for discussions. And that secondly everything had to be on the table, nothing could be ruled out beforehand, so that every party to the dispute had to be able to make their case as they saw fit, and have it discussed. So those are the two basic principles that I think have to be followed if there is to be any resolution of any dispute anywhere in the world. Every significant party must be involved in discussions and everything must be on the table for discussion.
Q: Ireland, as the OSCE chairing state next year, has said that conflict settlements in the OSCE area will be a priority. What do you think are the mechanisms or possibilities for Ireland to contribute to a settlement?
A: Well, we have a lot of experience, given that we have an ongoing quarrel here which has lasted hundreds of years and it has given rise to repeated, sporadic outbreaks of violence, the most recent of which lasted for about 25 years and caused about three and a half thousand deaths in a small population of about one and three-quarter million people. That’s a very significant level of hostilities, a very significant level of armed conflict. And we brought that to an end, and therefore we have some experience of that. I believe that every party in Ireland, whether of the Irish National persuasion or of the Ulster Unionist persuasion, is very willing to meet with and help any other peoples in the world who have disputes that they have not yet satisfactorily resolved.
In particular in Ireland there is a very strong territorial dimension to the problem, in that Northern Ireland, still being part of the UK, nevertheless somewhere between 40 and 50 per cent of its population is of the Irish national identity. And therefore the dispute is over territory, whether Ulster so-called is British or whether Ulster is Irish. We came to the conclusion that, well, it is both; it is both Irish and British, there are upwards of eight or nine hundred thousand, maybe a million people living here who identify themselves as British, about seven or eight hundred thousand people who identify themselves as Irish, therefore this territory cannot be exclusively Irish or exclusively British. Therefore, if you are looking for a solution, it has to be one not of exclusion but of inclusion.
Q: Northern Ireland and secessionists in Karabakh want to be declared independent states. Do you think that they have any chances of being recognized by the international community or are there more chances of being integrated into their own societies, Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan and Northern Ireland in Britain?
A: Again, I stress that we’re not in a position to prescribe a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue but it would appear that Nagorno-Karabakh has been for some time, not for ever but for some time, part of Azerbaijan, but it is populated largely by people of Armenian nationality. How that issue is resolved is a matter for yourselves to work out, but it would appear to me that it has to involve both states, that Nagorno-Karabakh has a connection with both Azerbaijan and Armenia, and frameworks need to be found to give recognition to both linkages between the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia itself, and Nagorno-Karabakh and the jurisdiction to which it has for some time been part. The framework of those linkages is something that you have to work out to your own satisfaction. We have some experience of that. We can give you examples of how we worked it out in relation to Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom until a majority wish it to be otherwise, but establishing cross-border agencies and bodies within Ireland to give recognition to the feeling that Irish nationals have that this Ireland is one country. Human imagination is such that it is possible to devise imaginative new frameworks that give recognition to the conflicting aspirations and the conflicting linkages between peoples.
Denis Haughey is a founder member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and former party chairman. He was a senior member of the SDLP negotiating team in the Northern Ireland peace talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement.
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