Governments await peace package responses

The British and Irish governments were tonight preparing to hear whether Northern Ireland politicians would accept or reject the latest package aimed at saving the peace process.

But the two parties at the centre of the wrangling indicated they were unlikely to provide responses to the new blueprint by tomorrow as the governments had hoped.

With only a week left to get the power-sharing government at Stormont back on course, a Government spokesman would only say: ‘‘Both governments said they wanted an early response - they said they wanted it by Monday.

‘‘We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.’’

The ‘‘take it or leave it’’ document published last week goes before Ulster Unionist Party officers tomorrow night and the Assembly party is due to discuss it on Tuesday. A final verdict is not expected before then.

Meanwhile Sinn Fein again signalled it was holding out for the publication of documents about police reform, criminal justice and demilitarisation before revealing its position.

However there was little evidence that Ulster Unionists would accept the plan in any course as the IRA remained silent about its weapons.

Party leader David Trimble said nobody could blame his party for rejecting the package unless it was accompanied by decommissioning.

‘‘But the paper if it produces decommissioning on the part of republicans and a clear acceptance of the police and support for proper policing by nationalists could create a different situation,’’ he told BBC TV’s Breakfast with Frost.

‘‘So I am afraid we have to put our response in those terms.’’

Mr Trimble prompted the latest crisis by resigning as Northern Ireland First Minister at the end of June because the IRA was not disarming.

The move set off a six-week countdown for the position to be filled or trigger Assembly election or the more likely option of a second suspension of the entire devolved regime.

Sinn Fein’s chief whip in the Assembly Alex Maskey said today he did not expect the unionists to return to the institutions.

Mr Maskey told RTE radio: ‘‘We want David Trimble to survive as First Minister but it really is up to the Unionist Party who is their leader.

‘‘We want the political institution to survive - David Trimble has walked away from them.

‘‘In my personal opinion, I don’t think the Unionist Party will agree to the return to the political institutions.’’

He complained of gaps in information which needed to be filled and, on the issue of policing, said his party needed more specifics.

Mr Maskey said: ‘‘So we have, in a sense, a statement of intent but there is absolutely nothing in terms of the how and the when these things will actually happen.’’

Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid earlier acknowledged that there had been a string of ‘‘so-called deadlines’’ since the Good Friday Agreement was signed but said he was waiting to hear from the parties.

Failing to break the impasse would only benefit ‘‘the type of people who are placing bombs in Ealing,’’ he told Breakfast with Frost.

‘‘We have to show politics works. It has worked in Northern Ireland. It is a much better place than it was, but there is a long, long way to go yet.’’

But he denied there were any talks going on with the IRA to deliver a breakthrough on decommissioning before next Sunday.

‘‘There is no secret deal, there is no secret agreement, there is no secret agenda here with any of the parties,’’ Dr Reid said.

Meanwhile Ulster Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson repeated his call for a radical review of the Good Friday Agreement if IRA decommissioning did not start.

‘‘I am not saying we set all this aside,’’ he told the programme.

‘‘But I think that we would be foolish now not to address the discussions in a much more in-depth and detailed way to see how we can go forward.

‘‘The document is very, very much unbalanced, that is recognised I think not just by unionists but I think in most of the major newspaper editorials there was a recognition that these proposals are totally unbalanced and unlikely to find favour within unionism.

‘‘Quite frankly I have not spoken to a single unionist in the past few days who has read this document and thinks that it is the basis for a way forward.’’