IRA 'must measure up to Good Friday deal'

The IRA must accept that its days as an active paramilitary force are at an end, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble said tonight.

In a speech to members of the Church of Scotland in Inverness, Mr Trimble called on the terror group to abide by the terms of the Good Friday Agreement by getting rid of its illegal arsenal.

He added the majority of unionists were still committed to making the Agreement work but this would not be achieved without a major move from republicans.

“Despite all the disappointments, the polls tell us that 60% of Protestants still want this and that support for the inclusive Executive would rise to some 75% if the IRA decommissioned and disbanded.

“But they will not tolerate a continuation of the republican duplicity we have had to endure,” he said.

The UUP leader said he fully supported the stance of British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a keynote speech in Belfast last October when he called on the IRA to bring to an end all activities which destabilised the Agreement.

“I do not know if the IRA can measure up. But the Prime Minister has made it clear where the responsibility lies; Unionists have nothing to fear in the current climate,” he added.

In his first speech since seeing off his anti-Agreement critics to win another vote of the Ulster Unionist Council, Mr Trimble accepted that deep divisions still existed within his party with regard to the peace process.

Referring to the International Monitoring Commission set up last week by the British government to assess paramilitary activity he insisted there was agreement within the party for the need for sanctions against those breaching the terms of the Agreement.

The three UUP rebel MPs who resigned the whip at Westminster, sparking a fresh crisis within the UUP, did so in protest at the Joint Declaration by the British and Irish governments.

Their objections included opposition to an Irish Government nominee on the International Monitoring Commission.

But Mr Trimble said: “Some people have understandable concerns. I hope that in the next few weeks it will become clear that the fears which surrounded the legislation for the new sanction regime are unfounded.

“There is general agreement that sanctions are essential to maintain public confidence after so much bad behaviour by paramilitaries. I am confident that these difficulties will be ironed out.”

However, he accused his opponents within the UUP of living in the past,

“Perhaps behind some of the criticisms, I detect a nostalgia for a world that has gone forever; a quieter world in which unionist leaders did not engage.”

In a clear reference to the leadership of one of his sternest critics Lord Molyneaux, Mr Trimble claimed that in the 1980s the UUP was continually outflanked by nationalists.

“The proof of the pudding was the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. We can never afford to be out of the loop again,” he added.