1.+j)+Peace+Treaties+and+the+Situation+Today

1998 Northern Ireland Peace Deal The Good Friday Agreement 1. What is another name given to the 1998 peace agreement? 2. How many years of talks have been needed to reach this agreement? 3. Who was the agreement signed by? 4. Why is it such an achievement for Tony Blair? 5. What did the proposals in the agreement include? 6. What will happen now that these proposals have been approved? 7. Who seemed to be unconvinced about the agreement and why? 8. What did the referendum in May result in? 9. What occurred during the first three years of the implementation?
 * Peace treaties and the situation today **

Ten years ago, the Good Friday Agreement officially put an end to the Troubles. The deal, brokered by President Bill Clinton, Senator George Mitchell, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Republic of Ireland //Taoiseach// (equivalent to prime minister) Bertie Ahern, represented a historic compromise. It created a semiautonomous government body comprising both Catholics and Protestants, and called for disarmament of paramilitary groups, release of jailed combatants and reorganization of the police force (at the time, 93 percent Protestant). The agreement also stipulated that Northern Ireland would remain part of Britain until a majority of its citizens voted otherwise. Another breakthrough occurred in May 2007: Martin McGuinness, a leader of Sinn Féin (headed by Gerry Adams) and former commander of the IRA in Derry, formed a coalition government with Ian Paisley, a firebrand Protestant minister and chairman of the hardline Democratic Unionist Party until June 2008. (The DUP had refused to sign the 1998 agreement.) "I still meet people who say they [had] to pinch themselves at the sight of us together," McGuinness told me during an interview at Stormont Castle, a Gothic-styled landmark that serves as the seat of government. Read more: [|http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Getting-Past-the-Troubles.html#ixzz237eprg1z]