Blair urged to push ahead with NI elections

British Prime Minister Tony Blair must tell Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble today that he is pushing ahead with Assembly elections in Northern Ireland next month, a former Sinn Fein minister insisted today.

Mr Trimble was preparing for a Downing Street meeting with Mr Blair on efforts to achieve a clear undertaking from the IRA that it is abandoning paramilitarism forever.

But Sinn Fein’s Bairbre de Brun also said the Government needed to push ahead with the release of the joint blueprint on the Good Friday Agreement it had created with the Irish Government.

“Tony Blair should be saying to David Trimble that the elections are going to go ahead, that there is a deal on the table, which we and Tony Blair are going to move ahead with, that the joint declaration is going to be published,” she said.

“He should be telling David Trimble that David Trimble should be making himself part of that process also.”

Mr Trimble’s meeting is his first with the Prime Minister since Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams on Sunday responded to three questions proposed by Mr Blair last week on the IRA’s future.

The West Belfast MP confirmed that the IRA was engaged in a disarmament process aimed at destroying all of its weapons and that the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement would lead to an end to all conflict.

However, Mr Blair on Monday said he was not satisfied with Mr Adams’s response to another question, asking if the IRA was prepared to end all paramilitary activity including targeting, training and intelligence gathering.

The Sinn Fein leader claimed on Sunday that he had discussed with the IRA paramilitary activity and he believed the organisation felt there should not be activities inconsistent with the Good Friday Agreement.

Officials in London and Dublin have argued that this is not clear enough.

As Mr Trimble prepared to fly to London, pressure was still continuing on the Government to declare that Assembly elections in Northern Ireland were going to take place on May 29.

The Northern Ireland Office has insisted that the election date is set but parties in the province have noticed that the Government is still talking about trying to hold the vote in a positive political climate.

Mr McGuinness today confirmed negotiations were still continuing between Sinn Fein and the two Governments.

“Gerry Adams and I are still of the view that the IRA statement is clear and unambiguous,” the Mid-Ulster MP said.

“What Gerry Adams has tried to do in the course of the last couple of days is assist the process, to do everything in our power to ensure that this process moves forward.

“It’s all work in progress. When I leave here now we will continue the work and I will hope, as always, for a successful outcome.”