Talks planned to shore up peace process

Urgent measures to save the Northern Ireland peace process from collapse began today after David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists threatened to quit the power-sharing government.

With Sinn Fein being set a January 18 deadline to guarantee the IRA will disband, the British and Irish governments have planned emergency talks on the looming crisis.

The threat of tough sanctions on republicans emerged at a weekend meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council in Belfast.

If Mr Trimble is not satisfied of Sinn Fein’s commitment to democracy he has vowed to take his Ulster Unionists out of the Northern Ireland Executive.

Secretary of State John Reid is also to organise meetings with all the pro-Good Friday Agreement parties in a bid to rescue the peace process.

Dr Reid has urged all sides to remember what is at stake.

“It doesn’t surprise me that in a huge historic project like this the matter of trust and reassurance will continually raise itself,” he said.

“I just hope that everyone will remember not only what they need for their side of the community, but what we would all lose if this process falters.”

Unionist confidence has been drained by allegations the IRA has been training left-wing Colombian terrorists, broke into Special Branch offices at Castlereagh police station and has been orchestrating sectarian street violence in Belfast.

Insisting that a complete disintegration of the IRA could be achieved within the four-month time frame, Mr Trimble has claimed this could be done in a number of ways.

He said: “It could be that the people in the IRA move unequivocally into Sinn Fein and devote themselves purely to democratic means.”

Mr Trimble’s party has also vowed to end its involvement in meetings of the North South Ministerial Council involving Sinn Fein ministers.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams denounced the plan as a “wrecker’s charter”.

But Mr Trimble insisted it was ongoing paramilitary violence on the streets of Belfast and the failure of both republican and loyalist terror organisations to disarm fully which has left the political institutions in peril.

He said there was no reason why decommissioning could not be completed by January 18 and claimed Mr Adams should have been preparing the IRA for the “inevitable”.

“If he has, there isn’t a problem. If he hasn’t, obviously there’s a problem,” he said.

“This process cannot be sustained as things stand at the moment.”

Mr Trimble claimed the public now thought they had been fooled because of the ongoing violence and republicans’ failure to deliver on its side of the bargain.

“People believe there’s never going to be change for the better.

“It’s now up to the people who have been dragging their feet to show it’s going to succeed.”