Take it to the Terrorists, Ceasefire, Then Negotiate

David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist Party head from Northern Ireland on negotiations with terrorists and what really led to peace.

Trimble goes on to lay down a couple of fundamental principles that led to the Good Friday Agreement and a sea-change in the situation in Northern Ireland.

"When people press me for parallels between our situations, they say, 'you decided to talk with terrorists, you involved terrorists in the process.'

"My response is that we didn't involve the political representatives of the IRA until there was an effective cease-fire. And even afterwards, we wouldn't have talked to Sinn Fein until it declared its adherence to a set of principles that renounced the threat of violence as a means of achieving political ends, and until they agreed to respect the outcome of talks and not use violence or the threat of violence to try to change the outcome of the talks."

Another fundamental factor behind the negotiations, Trimble says, was that in the early 1990s, the IRA was losing the war. The negotiations would not have started, Trimble says, had not the security services been so successful, and had the IRA not been "staring failure in the face."

"The process would not have gone forward if they were not facing defeat; this is what induced them to abandon revolution for reform."