DUP withdraws ministers

IAN PAISLEY’S Democratic Unionist Party withdrew its ministers from the Northern Assembly yesterday saying the Good Friday Agreement is history.

The hardline unionist party said it was time to look to the future and fresh elections.

Mr Paisley said the current institutions could not be restored in the future and that his party would not sit in government with Sinn Féin again.

The resignations of Regional Development Minister Peter Robinson and Social Development Minister Nigel Dodds took effect from noon.

Deputy leader Mr Robinson warned British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he must not postpone elections, insisting that would be the "trait of a fascist".

"It is now time to draw a line under the failed process and to look towards the future," he said.

"The people should be allowed to speak. They have been denied the right for too long."

Mr Paisley said it was a disgrace that because Sinn Féin had become involved in actions that were "treasonable", other democratic parties had been forced to walk out of the institutions.

"We are not going to renegotiate the Agreement, the Agreement is finished," he said.

Meanwhile, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble yesterday told Taoiseach Bertie Ahern that Sinn Féin should be kicked out of Northern Ireland's ruling executive.

During a 75-minute meeting with Mr Ahern in Dublin, Mr Trimble outlined his view that suspension of the Belfast-based assembly was not the right way to respond to discoveries made when police raided Sinn Féin's parliamentary offices last week.

He said move towards suspension of the assembly, which appeared to be the favoured course of both the British and Irish governments was "wrong as a matter of principle.

"It does not sort out the problem, which is continued para-military activity. The basic fact remains that four-and-a-half years into a transition, that which should have been done that which the (Good Friday) agreement provided for within two years has not been done. No significant progress has been made. Mr Trimble firmly ruled out suggestions that a joint Dublin-London authority, operating through the Anglo-Irish Conference, might assume of the role of the Northern Ireland Assembly, declaring: "That would be running contrary to the agreement there is no basis for it at all.