Ireland’s President Asks Ira Cease-Fire

Irish President Mary Robinson urged the IRA on Friday to declare a new cease-fire so that Northern Ireland will not miss the “extraordinary window of opportunity” offered by U.S.-backed peace talks.

Sinn Fein, political ally of the Irish Republican Army, is barred from the all-party peace conference in Belfast until the IRA calls a cease-fire. The IRA ended a previous truce with a Feb. 9 truck bomb that killed two men in London.

The peace talks are seeking a way to govern Northern Ireland, a British province, that is acceptable to its pro-British Protestant majority as well as its Irish Catholic minority. A major goal is to end violence that has killed 3,200 people since 1969.