Republicans 'must move quickly on arms issue'

Republicans need to up the pace over the issue of arms decommissioning, Ulster Unionists claimed today.

David McNarry, the party’s Strangford representative, said there were still no signs that Sinn Fein and the IRA were inclined to move on the question of putting weapons beyond use ‘‘at a pace with which society will be comfortable with’’.

Mr McNarry spoke after a meeting of senior UUP members - including leader and First Minister David Trimble and the head of the international disarmament body, General John de Chastelain.

He said: ‘‘It is clear to us that what needs to happen now is that there needs to be a quick shift onto the methodology as to how we move this situation forward.

‘‘And whilst it also appears to us that two weeks’ have lapsed since the last meeting (between the IRA and the Arms Commission), there are no clear indications that Sinn Fein/IRA seem intent on moving this forward at a pace Mr McNarry described their meeting with General de Chastelain as an ‘‘arms audit’’.

He said Ulster Unionists were focused on the decommissioning issue and on the need for Republicans to honour their commitment to the putting of IRA weapons beyond use.

The UUP’s meeting with the de Chastelain Commission was convened after the decommissioning body’s report last Thursday on its contacts with the IRA in recent weeks.

The Commission had expressed its belief that progress can be achieved on IRA disarmament.

Mr McNarry said the only positive element they were taking away from today’s meeting was the general’s insistence that another meeting between his commission and the IRA would have to take place.

’’I think we are all concerned about the time scale between that happening and not happening. So if we’re taking anything positive from it, we are taking a positive step that he will be coming back to us and indeed, my leader will be knocking on his door in the not too distance future to say where are we now?’’ he added.