In the second part of our series on the peace process, Sinn Fein chief negotiator Martin McGuinness recalls his first encounter with the PM and explains how he saved the Good Friday deal

Guardian

Q: Was Tony Blair nervous when you first met?

A: He probably was just like us, wondering where all of this was going to lead. We were very conscious when we went to meet Blair that the securocrats would have been with him and would have said, this is who you are going to meet. It's Gerry Adams, it's Martin McGuinness, and this is their history. We didn't have anybody on our side who was able to give us a file on Tony Blair. We had to think on the gallop and make our own assessments and judgments based on how we found him. It was clear to us that he was showing very clear signs and indications that he was up to do the business as well.

Did the two prime ministers save the Good Friday agreement?

If the taoiseach and the British prime minister had not come we'd probably still be sitting there...I don't have any doubt whatsoever that if Tony Blair had not come and effectively laid it on the line to the leadership of the Ulster Unionist party in particular that he wanted this agreement, and he wanted it by Good Friday 1998, then if he had not done that with the support of the taoiseach the entire project would have collapsed.

I wasn't able to make an assessment of where Blair got [his commitment] from. Where did his intellectual and emotional engagement in the process come from?...It probably came from knowing and understanding that this was a conflict that had gone on for, at that stage, over 25 years. What powered him in all of this? Was it a desire to be the first British prime minister in history to make an important contribution? It didn't really matter. What mattered was whether or not we were dealing with someone who made an impression on us. Somebody who...was challenging the Thatcher mentality that the enemy was the republicans, the enemy was the IRA, that they had to be defeated at all costs. I think it was his willingness to do that that made an impression on us.

He didn't mention his Co Donegal roots?

He never mentioned it once.

The Unionists say he had a Protestant mother from Ballyshannon and he used to spend holidays in Rossnowlagh. So he mentioned it to them and not to you?

He probably thought we would have railed against her being a Protestant, not that it would have mattered one jot what she was. Donegal Protestants are good people just like the Protestants all over Ireland are very good people.

Do you think mistakes were made?

It is just an occupational hazard. A big issue for us was the lack of real leadership by David Trimble in terms of getting on with the business of government rather than being almost paralysed by the influence of Paisley in all of this. I certainly think, if you like, the feeding of that mentality by the side letters and almost allowing David Trimble to sit back in a comfort zone of trying to manage the situation in the way he thought best ... If Blair and Trimble had been more determined in facing down Paisley at an early stage then the Ulster Unionist party would not have got itself into the fix it got itself in the course of the last number of years.

We're trying to put the institutions in place now with Ian Paisley as first minister and with Ian Paisley very clearly giving the impression now that he is up for this whilst at the same time confusing elements within his own constituency as to whether or not that is truly the case. But I think to bring about a situation where the DUP and Sinn Féin are in government is probably one of the biggest political developments on the island of Ireland in over 100 years.

Do you think your side have made any mistakes? Took a long time for decommissioning?

The issue of arms was obviously a highly vexed issue...It had to be dealt with sensibly from a republican point of view. It had to be dealt with in the type of time frame that was laid down by ourselves. But the issue of arms was dealt with to the satisfaction of De Chastelain, the taoiseach and the British prime minister. And of course prior to that, in 2005, the IRA did make the just as symbolically, maybe even more, important statement that the war was over. So the combination of the war being over, the combination of dealing with the issue of arms obviously could only have happened within the time frame that was dictated by the republican negotiators. To deal with it in the time frame of others was to run the risk of totally destroying the entire process and we were not prepared to do that.