NORTHERN IRELAND’S chief constable joined Martin McGuinness an event in Republican west Belfast on Thursday night calling for for a new climate of reconciliation.

George Hamilton shared a stage with the Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister at a discussion event focusing on the legacy of the Troubles. It’s believed to be the first time a chief constable and a Sinn Fein leader have appeared on stage together.

The debate focused on the thousands of killings yet to be solved, allegations of past police wrongdoings, continuing failures to address sectarianism and division and the current threat posed by dissident republicans.

Although Mr Hamilton faced protests by the Anti-Internment League outside St Mary’s College, the audience — a number of whom lost loved ones during the conflict — applauded him.

Mr McGuinness praised Mr Hamilton for attending.

“It’s no easy journey for someone who effectively comes from an organisation like the police service to come to a place like west Belfast,” he said.

A new framework for dealing with the Troubles — including a new independent investigations unit and a separate truth recovery body — was agreed between Stormont’s leaders last year.

But Mel Corry of Trademark, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions anti-sectarian unit in Belfast, said: “Broadly we see this as a welcome development, but the danger is that it can become the easy route to take.

“Speaking at a festival event once a year, while Sinn Fein and the DUP seem incapable of normal political engagement, relegates dealing with the past to the sidelines.

“A proper process needs to be brought forward along the lines outlined by Eames-Bradley,” Mr Corry said, referring to the consultative group on reconciliation.