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- WORLD, Page 44World NotesNORTHERN IRELANDAt Long Last, Hope for Peace
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- Slowly but perceptibly, some of Northern Ireland's Catholic
- minority are joining the province's middle class. And that bodes
- well for the success of new negotiations to decide Ulster's
- future announced in London last week. The talks culminate 14
- months of intricate diplomacy and are slated to begin by the end
- of April. They will include three separate, interlocking
- conferences: one will involve Northern Ireland's mainly
- Protestant unionist political parties, which want to see the
- province remain part of Britain, and the principally Catholic
- nationalist parties, which want Ulster to be part of Ireland.
- Other talks will be between delegates from Ulster and the Irish
- Republic, and between Ireland and Britain.
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- The immediate goal is to restore limited self-government
- to Northern Ireland, which has been ruled directly by London
- since 1972. But the hope is that the talks will eventually lead
- to a permanent end to the conflict, and the improving
- prosperity of the Catholics should help. "People want an end to
- all the killings," said Seamus Mallon, a leader of the liberal
- Social Democratic and Labour Party. Protestant extremists and
- the Irish Republican Army, whose political wing, Sinn Fein, was
- denied a seat at the talks, are expected to respond with a new
- wave of violence.
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