British Queen, ex-IRA chief to seal end to conflict
Source: Reuters
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"Britain's Queen Elizabeth is to shake the hand of a once-feared commander of the Irish Republican Army on Wednesday to draw a line under one of Europe's bitterest conflicts, which cost the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians, including her cousin.
The meeting with Martin McGuinness in a Belfast theatre, 14 years after the Irish Republican Army (IRA) ended its war against Britain's claim to Northern Ireland, will be the final major handshake in a peace process whose success has been studied around the world.
There has been scattered opposition from dissident Irish militants and from some of the IRA's victims. But the vast majority of the province's politicians backs the meeting, the first between the queen and a senior member of the IRA, or its political wing, Sinn Fein.
"This closes the circle," Brian Feeney, a historian of the Irish republican movement, said. "All the important people in Britain and Ireland have met each other and acknowledged each other. It brings Sinn Fein into the mainstream."
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/26/us-irish-queen-idUSBRE85P0WR20120626
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"Queen Elizabeth II and a former Irish Republican Army commander have offered each other the hand of peace in a long-awaited encounter symbolizing Northern Ireland's progress in achieving reconciliation after decades of violence.
Northern Ireland Office officials say the monarch and Martin McGuinness met privately Wednesday inside a Belfast theater during a cross-community arts event. Media were barred from the event, but the two are expected to have a public handshake later.
Experts say McGuinness was the IRA's chief of staff when the outlawed group assassinated the queen's cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, in 1979.
The IRA renounced violence and disarmed in 2005. Two years later, McGuinness became the senior Catholic in Northern Ireland's unity government."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57460314/queen-elizabeth-ii-ex-ira-chief-martin-mcguinness-shake-hands-in-reconciliation-landmark/
