As Talks Get Underway, Republican at Heart of Stormont Crisis Speaks Out

One of the leading Republicans whose arrest on Wednesday, September 9, led to the resignation of Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) members of Stormont’s power-sharing government, intensifying the region’s political crisis, has spoken out. Flanked by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Bobby Storey insisted at a press conference in Belfast on Sunday that the IRA had “gone.”

“The IRA has gone. The IRA has stood down, they have put their arms beyond use,” Storey said.

Storey was released from police custody on Thursday.

His comments came a day before parties in Northern Ireland were to meet for talks with the British and Irish governments on resolving the crisis. Credit: Sinn Fein