Peace talks heading for stalemate

Talks designed to salvage the Good Friday Agreement appear to be reaching stalemate without a settlement.

British Government sources were insisting yesterday that if no solution could be found by the end of today to the crisis sparked by the failure of the IRA to decommission arms, no other opportunity for talks would be available before the deadline.

But as Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble left the talks venue on the Staffordshire-Shropshire border, he suggested yet another round of discussions was in the offing.

Mr Trimble said: "I think that there will be a round-table meeting later this afternoon and a statement will be issued.

"I can't anticipate that statement, but my expectation is that the statement will be one recording the effort that has been made and expressing the hope that further efforts over the next few days and weeks may bear fruit. I hope that it will."

Mr Trimble's departure some hours before the expected end of the five days of talks follows that of the party's Executive member, Sir Reg Empey.

Other UUP delegates remained in the Weston Park country house, where Bertie Ahern and his British counterpart Tony Blair have been meeting Ulster's pro-Agreement parties, but the absence of two of the party's most senior figures suggested it held out little hope for a settlement which it could accept.

Mr Trimble said he was leaving to catch a plane to Belfast, but Sinn Fein delegates expressed surprise, saying they had expected him to fly back later in the day on the same chartered jet as them.

Sinn Fein Assemblywoman Baibre de Brun suggested the talks were still a long way from achieving the kind of deal her party was looking for.