British PM Tony Blair said on Tuesday that history would decide whether peace in Northern Ireland or the war in Iraq would be the outstanding part of his legacy.
BELFAST: British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday that history would decide whether peace in Northern Ireland or the war in Iraq would be the outstanding part of his legacy.
Blair, who is expected to announce his resignation plans this week, hailed the restoration of self-rule in Northern Ireland, which the province hopes will finally bury the dark decades of sectarian violence.
Asked in Belfast whether Iraq would overshadow his achievements in Northern Ireland, Blair told BBC television: "I get to the point after 10 years of doing this job where I leave other people to make the judgements about these things.
"The most important thing you can do as a prime minister... is do what you believe to be right and for the rest, history will make its judgement.
"There are always two types of people in politics: those who stand aside and commentate and those who get their hands dirty and do."
He said the restoration of the Northern Irish Assembly, where power is shared between Protestants and Catholics, was a special moment personally.
"It's a tremendous thing for me, which I do feel emotionally," he said.
"I'd like to think and hope that it will give heart to optimists everywhere to see a process of conflict come to an end and a process of peace begins."
Blair said the path to peace in Northern Ireland was at times tortuous, including trying to coax paramilitary commanders to give up their weapons in favour of democracy.
"Throughout there were immensely difficult tactical judgements and I don't pretend in the least that I got all of those right," he said.
"There were risks all the way through."
Northern Ireland's leaders "were people who all the time I could feel were genuine in their desire to bring this about. At points it looked as if we couldn't do it, but I was never in any doubt that they wanted to do it."
He said the low point of the peace process was the car bombing of the Northern Irish town of Omagh on August 15, 1998, by dissident Catholic Republican terrorists.
Some 29 people were killed, including a pregnant woman, and about 220 injured in what was the province's worst single atrocity in three decades of "The Troubles".
"The worst moment emotionally was Omagh because I always thought the moment you got the Good Friday Agreement that someone would try to destroy the possibility of peace," Blair said.
"A part of that deal was something essentially fair and right, namely that Unionism should share power and Republicanism should persue their cause peacefully.
"Omagh was definitely the worst time and some of the most harrowing times I've had as prime minister have been meeting the relatives of people from that.
"There was a renewed determination at that point that that destructive power should not succeed."
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