ARLENE Foster has urged the new Northern Ireland Secretary to limit the scope of the controversial Troubles probe.
The DUP boss will pressure Brandon Lewis to revisit the Historical Investigations Unit, which was key to persuading Sinn Fein to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland last month.
DUP boss Arlene Foster has urged the new Northern Ireland Secretary to limit the scope of the controversial Troubles probe
The HIU must be set up within 100 days of the Stormont Assembly agreement.
But it could lead to a fresh witch-hunt against thousands of vets and that would break the Tory election pledge to protect military veterans from new, spurious claims.
Ms Foster said: What was originally mooted in the Stormont agreement does need to be revisited because a lot of matters have changed.
“All the so-called state killings were put into the HIU, so there are great difficulties in that not least that 90 per cent of those who lost their lives in Northern Ireland were killed by paramilitaries, terrorists if you will.
“There is a need for balance in everything we do here in Northern Ireland.”
“It is very important that the victims are at the fore. I hope Brandon Lewis will listen to the voices of the victims. That is something I will certainly be saying to him.”
On a visit to Belfast in his first full day in the job, Mr Lewis insisted he will continue to stick by the commitments made in The New Decade, New Approach deal.
He said: “The New Decade, New Approach agreement is something the Government is absolutely committed to and I see my job as actually building on that and delivering on the promise of that agreement.”
New Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis
A British Army soldier on the streets of the predominantly Catholic Ardoyne area of North Belfast in 1971
