Sinn Féin and UUP to resume talks

Sinn Féin and the Ulster Unionist Party are due to begin fresh talks today following the collapse of their latest peace initiative yesterday.

The initiative collapsed after Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble rejected a statement from the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning regarding the destruction of IRA weapons.

Mr Trimble said the statement was not transparent enough to restore unionist confidence in the future intentions of the republican movement.

The IICD refused to give an inventory of the arms, ammunition and explosives destroyed, but said the total amount was larger than that involved in the last act of IRA disarmament.

Remarkably, Mr Trimble appears to have completely accepted the statement given by Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams earlier in the day.

The statement did not clearly answer any of the three questions posed to the IRA in the recent Irish-British declaration on implementing the Good Friday Agreement.

That declaration called on the IRA to make it clear that its war was over, that it had called an end to paramilitary activity and that it was engaged in a process to completely destroy all its arms.

However, Mr Adams’ statement yesterday was filled with vague language, which, according to unionist sceptics, failed entirely to answer the three questions posed in the joint declaration.

Speaking last night, Mr Adams said Mr Trimble was fully aware of what the IICD would say about the latest act of IRA decommissioning.

The Sinn Féin president and his colleagues said a deal had been reached with the UUP and yesterday’s sequence of events was a carefully choreographed way of announcing details of the deal.

Mr Trimble and his colleagues, on the other hand, have insisted that they were expecting an inventory of the arms destroyed by the IICD.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he believed that if unionists were made aware of the what the IRA had decommissioned, they would be satisfied and would agree to resume sharing power with Sinn Féin.