LONDON, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams urged the Rev. Ian Paisley to meet him in face-to-face peace talks, the Evening Standard newspaper said Thursday.
Adams, who heads Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army said exhaustive attempts to reach an historic power-sharing deal and achieve total IRA disarmament were reaching a defining moment, the London newspaper said.
"I'm appealing to Ian Paisley today as a leader of unionism, as a mandated political leader, to come and meet and talk to me about all these issues," Adams said. "I think if we lose this moment we lose this moment, and if we go and try to sort it out again it will be much, much more difficult."
Paisley, the leader of the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland Wednesday refused to consider sharing power with Sinn Fein because the IRA had refused to provide adequate evidence that they were disarming. The IRA responded in a statement by accusing Paisley of attempting to humiliate it.
Earlier, Adams said the IRA's latest statement was not an attempt to destroy the negotiating process but a declaration of peace.
