The Belfast Agreement has delivered partnership between those who supported it and those who opposed it, one of its architects claimed tonight.
As politicians involved in the negotiations 10 years ago that led to the Agreement prepared to take part in a symposium in Belfast tomorrow reflecting on the accord, nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan said those who drafted it were entitled to take satisfaction that it was being implemented a decade on.
"The SDLP said in 1998 that we designed the Agreement to ensure partnership between those who voted yes and those who voted no (in the subsequent referendum) as well as between unionists and nationalists and so it is proving," the Foyle MP said.
"We now have a settled process as all parties, at last, accept power-sharing, north/south structures and a reformed police service.
"We must not revert to the stop-go process that hampered the Agreement for too long. Of course our problems are not all behind us.
"The Good Friday Agreement endorsed by the people was the emancipation of hope. Our task is the emancipation of opportunity."
Under the chairmanship of former US Senator George Mitchell, politicians from eight Northern Ireland parties and the British and Irish Governments secured the Good Friday Agreement 10 years ago.
The accord covered a wide range of issues from the setting up of a power-sharing government involving unionists and nationalists and a devolved Assembly, to north-south relations, police reform, paramilitary disarmament, early prison releases, and the rights of Irish and Ulster Scots speakers.
It was passed simultaneously in referenda on both sides of the border, with the Irish Government agreeing to drop its constitutional claim over Northern Ireland.
Tomorrow's symposium organised by the US-Ireland Alliance will reunite Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Senator Mitchell with others involved in the negotiations, including Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy, decommissioning chief
General John de Chastelain, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey, loyalist Davy Adams and former SDLP leader John Hume.
PA