Loyalists set to pull out of Ulster peace talks

Loyalists were set to break off negotiations today with the man overseeing paramilitary disarmament in a major new blow to the Northern Ireland peace process.

The leadership of the Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commando warned that its commitment to the Good Friday Agreement was coming under strain.

Representatives of the terror grouping’s political wing, the Progressive Unionist Party, were today due to make a further announcement in Belfast.

Well-placed sources have disclosed that PUP Assembly member Billy Hutchinson, the UVF’s representative in discussions with General John de Chastelain’s international decommissioning body, will now sever his links with the body.

In a statement issued last night, the paramilitary organisation accused the IRA of the wholesale sectarian targeting of unionist people throughout the North.

Its leadership insisted the grouping had shown a genuine and meaningful commitment to the search for an honourable settlement in Northern Ireland.

But it warned: “Today that commitment faces adverse strain.”

The British and Irish governments were also cautioned not to make unilateral concessions to republicans as part of any attempt to revive the devolved institutions.

“The underhanded approach of the past must end,” it said.

Northern Ireland Chief Constable Hugh Orde admitted he was deeply concerned by the UVF’s statement.

He said: “If anyone starts to talk about walking away from the peace process, then that worries me. Of course it does.”

Sinn Fein’s North Belfast MLA Gerry Kelly denounced the UVF’s claims and described its assessment as a backward step.

But the peace process is now certain to come under further pressure when the PUP announces it is pulling Mr Hutchinson out of his role as a link between the UVF and General de Chastelain.

It follows a decision by the IRA last year to cut off contact with the disarmament body.

London and Dublin now face a huge task to restore confidence on all sides in the crisis-hit process.

In the statement released to the BBC last night, the UVF said: “The words and actions of the republican movement have consistently created instability for the people of Northern Ireland.

“Their New Year statement displayed total arrogance amid a blind refusal to accept any modicum of complicity for the current stalemate.

“Such patent intransigence conveys an implicit threat to the peace process.”

The Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended since October last year following allegations that an IRA spy ring was operating at the heart of the power-sharing government.

The statement comes a week after PUP leader David Ervine announced the party - which holds two seats in the Stormont Assembly – was withdrawing from talks aimed at restoring devolution after claiming it was being excluded from negotiations.

Mr Ervine said his colleagues could not be expected to “rubberstamp” a deal they had no sight of during negotiations.

“It is clear there are things going on in the undergrowth – both political and paramilitary,” he said.