Irish republican says violence is counter-productive

Killings turn people away from cause, says former hardline leader Des Dalton

A leading political voice in Irish dissident republicanism has urged all the armed paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland to call ceasefires and end their violence.

Des Dalton, the former president of the ideologically hardline Republican Sinn Fein, has become the first figure to emerge from dissident republican groups to advise those like him opposed to the Good Friday agreement that armed struggle" should be suspended. His call for a dissident republican ceasefire comes at a time of increasing tension within Northern Ireland, particularly inside Ulster loyalist paramilitary factions.