Joint Framework Document

The Northern Ireland peace process is often considered to cover the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Good Friday (or Belfast) Agreement of 1998, and subsequent political developments.

In 1994, talks between the leaders of the two main Irish nationalist parties in Northern Ireland, John Hume of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), and Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin (SF), continued. These talks led to a series of joint statements on how the violence might be brought to an end. The talks had been going on since the late 1980s and had secured the backing of the Irish Government through an intermediary, Father Alec Reid.

In November it was revealed that the British government had also been in talks with the Provisional IRA, although they had long denied it.

On Wednesday 15 December 1993, the Joint Declaration on Peace (more commonly known as the Downing Street Declaration) was issued by John Major, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Albert Reynolds, then Taoiseach (Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland), on behalf of the British and Irish governments. This included statements that:

Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) opposed the Declaration, James Molyneaux of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) argued that it was not a "sell-out" of unionists, and Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin requested dialogue with the governments and clarification of the Declaration.