Irish Peace Process - Exploratory Dialogues (1994-1995)

Dates of Exploratory Dialogues Meetings (1994-1995)

Exploratory dialogues was the term given to two separate, but concurrent, sets of political talks that took place from December 1994 to July 1995. One set of talks involved Northern Ireland Office (NIO) officials and Sinn Féin representatives (these talks were given a notation XD - exploratory dialogue). The second set of talks was between NIO officcials and two Loyalist political parties, the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) (this set of talks was given a notation LXD - Loyalist exploratory dialogue).
After starting at senior official level, the UK Government teams were subsequently led in person by the NIO Minister of State, Michael Ancram MP (this included the first formal meeting between a British Minister and Sinn Fein since the early 1970s.) The Exploratory Dialogues focused particularly on seeking to agree the necessary logistics and processes for decommissioning illegal weapons, following the ceasefires, and commencing multi-party Talks. The Dialogues came to an end in the summer of 1995 as attention turned to the next stage of establishing the International Body.
The tables below list the dates that the various meetings took place, and provide links to any relevant documents that are available on CAIN.
See:
Leach, S.J. (2026). The Exploratory Dialogues - Building Towards the Good Friday Agreement, (October 2026), [PDF; 848KB]. Web: CAIN. ... [25825] - [Essay]
Note: Thanks to Stephen Leach for the essay and the additional information on the exploratory dialogues.
See also:
Documents in the CAIN Bibliography related to the Exploratory Dialogues.