NI to discuss removing 'peace lines'

Councillors in Belfast were today urged to set up a working group to look into the removal of walls separating Protestant and Catholic communities in the city.

The nationalist SDLP is to put the proposal at the monthly meeting of the city council tomorrow night.

More than 40 so-called peace lines, resembling the Berlin Wall, have been erected in sectarian flashpoint areas in Belfast, Derry and other parts of Northern Ireland.

The first 25ft iron, brick and steel walls were built during the 1970s.

However a debate has begun about whether the peace lines can be dismantled in the wake of last year's power-sharing agreement at Stormont between unionists and republicans.

Communities in Belfast have been already been sounded out about the symbolic tearing down of one wall by the organisers of a special conference in April marking the 10th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement.

The conference, planned by the US Ireland Alliance, will be attended by former US President Bill Clinton and former Stormont talks chairman, Senator George Mitchell.