Trimble and Blair for crisis talks

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble has left Belfast for crisis talks with Tony Blair as sectarian violence flared up again in the city.

The Northern Ireland First Minister broke off a public engagement with Bill Clinton in Enniskillen during the tense stand-off between loyalists and nationalists in east Belfast.

Rival sides blamed each other for the clashes which blocked the Newtownards Road and Templemore Avenue.

Nationalists claimed a funeral at St Matthew's Catholic Church was pelted with bricks and other people were attacked as they headed to a doctor's surgery and post office.

Loyalists accused a mob from the Short Strand, led by a senior republican, of attacking a teenage girl.

Democratic Unionist Police Board member Sammy Wilson, who was in the area, claimed the teenager had been beaten and spat at by a mob and criticised police for not arresting those responsible.

The East Belfast MLA said: "The police who once again appear to have no authority to go into Short Strand have made no attempt to arrest the perpetrators or to remove the republican mob from the chapel grounds.

"While I understand that the police have a very difficult job to do in interface areas and I support them in policing a tense situation, nevertheless it is incomprehensible to those who have been attacked to find that the police turned their attention on them while turning their backs on the republican assailants."

But Sinn Fein councillor Joe O'Donnell alleged that nationalists were attacked as they made their way to a doctor's surgery and post office in Newtownards Road. He also claimed mourners at the funeral of a 50-year-old woman were pelted with bricks from the loyalist side and some were injured.

Police and community leaders have accused the Provisional IRA and loyalist paramilitary groups, the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Volunteer Force, of exploiting the situation and orchestrating the violence.