Blair under pressure over Sinn Fein

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair was today under new Ulster Unionist pressure to ban Sinn Fein from any revived powersharing executive in Belfast.

Demands that Downing Street and Dublin should act, following Irish assessments, apparently based on British intelligence that the IRA is still active, heightened when David Trimble met colleagues in Belfast.

Jeffrey Donaldson, one of the party MPs said: “There is no evidence, at this stage, that they (IRA) have made any move to demonstrate their commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.

“It is now time to exclude them (Sinn Fein) from ministerial office and to keep them out until such times as the IRA is disbanded.”

Mr Trimble yesterday walked out of a meeting with Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy, Foreign Minister Brian Cowen and representatives of all the pro-Good Friday Agreement parties after a confidential Dublin assessment said that the Provisionals were still recruiting, training and gathering intelligence.

Dublin has insisted that the report was based on Northern Ireland Office documentation.

But with Unionists claiming further evidence of IRA breaches of their ceasefire a fresh crisis is looming.

Mr Trimble has let it be known to Mr Blair and the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern that his continued participation in further talks will depend on the response he gets from London and Dublin.

New talks are likely to be called next month as both governments attempt to hammer out some sort of agreement to try to get the executive up and running again by the end of February, in advance of planned new elections to the Stormont Assembly in May.

The republican leadership is under intense pressure from all sides to make a major new move on decommissioning, but another move short of disbandment will not satisfy the Unionists.

Meanwhile extra troops and police were today on duty in north and west Belfast after a fresh series of overnight shootings linked to the loyalist paramilitary feud.

Nobody was hurt, but the attacks signalled an escalation in violence, with rival factions in the Ulster Defence Association claiming people will died unless it ends.