Decommissioning move ‘‘potentially significant’’ - Trimble

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble today described Gerry Adams’s call for the IRA to disarm as ‘‘potentially significant’’.

But as Northern Ireland holds its breath to see if the republican group will make a historic move on disarmament, the former Stormont First Minister was taking a cautious ‘‘wait and see’’ approach.

‘‘I don’t think he (Mr Adams) would have called upon the IRA to make what he termed a ground-breaking move if he didn’t expect a response,’’ Mr Trimble said.

‘‘I rather suspect what we are seeing is a bit of choreography from the republican movement,’’ he said.

Mr Trimble, who resigned as First Minister and pulled his ministers out of the power-sharing Executive in protest of the lack of decommissioning, is poised to return to the administration if the IRA make its move.

He would not take action before studying any report on disarmament and meeting with General John de Chastelain, head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), he said, adding: ‘‘I think the first thing we wait and see what republicans do.

‘‘We wait to see what General de Chastelain and the IICD say about it and then we will take a decision.’’

Expectations that a move by the Provisionals was imminent were heightened after Royal Ulster Constabulary Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan forecast that disarmament would happen soon.

He said: ‘‘It’s my estimation that these calls would not have been made by the people who made them without a real expectation on their part that something real will follow and follow very quickly.’’

But Mr Trimble is under pressure from anti-Agreement elements within his party not to react to a one-off decommissioning event.

He will require the support of some Ulster Unionist sceptics within the Assembly if he is to be re-elected as First Minister.

One of those most opposed to the Agreement, North Down MLA Peter Weir, said unionists should not go back into the Executive on the strength of a one-off move from the IRA.

‘‘What we need to see instead of simply a gesture from the IRA, we want to see a process in which arms are put beyond use.

‘‘I think until we see that, we are not really much further forward.’’

Mr Trimble said he believed the gesture would be accepted if weapons were seen to be put ‘‘completely and verifiably beyond use’’.

He added: ‘‘I think it will be. I think that people know that this process is there, these procedures are there in order to do a particular job. We wait to see whether republicans do things that come within the terms of the legislation.’’

Foreign Minister Brian Cowen said there were strong signals that the IRA was about to begin disarmament and urged unionists to respond positively.

‘‘What’s really important is that we see an act of putting arms beyond use. We also want to see the responses that would be called for.’’

Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin expressed hope that the IRA would soon begin disarmament but recognised that supporters had difficulties with the process.

‘‘I think that this is a necessary step. It is a difficult step and we have a considerable amount of work to do with our grass-roots support to sell this message.’’

He added: ‘‘I am encouraged, not just by David Trimble’s remarks this morning but by the commentary that we hear coming from Protestant churchpeople and from Government spokespersons.’’

Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine said Sinn Fein’s move was of ‘‘very serious significance’’ and added that he believed the IRA would make a move before Thursday night.

He believed unionists ‘‘apart from the usual suspects’’ would give it, for the moment, a guarded but eventually welcome response, he said.