Briefing notes sent to senior civil servants explaining the proposed Downing Street Declaration December 1993

Transcript

SECRET AND PERSONAL

DRAFT LETTER FROM RODERIC LYNE TO:

Private Secretaries to Members of the Cabinet

ANGLO-IRISH JOINT DECLARATION INITIATIVE

The Prime Minister reported to Cabinet last week that negotiations with the Irish Government on a Joint Declaration were close to completion.

2. The Prime Minister and Taoiseach will meet again in London [today/tomorrow] when the Joint Declaration will be made. (The text, which may be subject to some minor last minute adjustment, is attached.

3. The background to the making of the Joint Declaration is a little complex. The Irish Government, and the Taoiseach in particular, have come to the view, based to some extent on contacts with the Provisional Movement, that a significant component of the organisation is looking for a way of bringing the “armed struggle” to an end. This is more than a hope, but less than a firm prediction. The Joint Declaration was conceived as a way of providing cover to enable the IRA to bring its campaign to an end, and to commit itself wholly to political and democratic methods, without acknowledging abject surrender. At the same time, and in parallel, Mr John Hume has been conducting an intermittent dialogue with the Provisional Movement, and in particular with Mr Gerry Adams, with the same objective. There have been many drafts of the Joint Declaration and the parentage of different elements in it is obscure, and may subsequently be contested.

4. Until very recently the position of the British Government, […]