North elections: No breakthrough in sight
Intensive negotiations between republicans, unionists and the Irish and British governments continued today in a final push to solve the crisis in the Northern Ireland peace process.
Sinn Féin negotiators said they put a number of suggestions to unionists and representatives of the two governments last night which they said were part of a bid to break the logjam.
However, as hopes of a breakthrough faded, the Ulster Unionists prepared for their first election broadcast and the start of campaigning in earnest for the November 26 poll to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Leader David Trimble will appear on television with his wife Daphne tonight and state his party’s position as it embarks upon the election trail.
He is expected to tell voters that Northern Ireland has come a long way since the beginning of the peace process, but more progress must be made.
Negotiations between the parties carried on over the weekend as efforts to find a breakthrough in the stalled peace process continued.
Both Mr Trimble and Gerry Adams have publicly insisted they remain optimistic about the prospect of a deal, but privately the parties are downbeat.
The Sinn Féin leadership has held face-to-face talks with senior unionists, while Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair have also talked via telephone.
It is understood Tony Blair’s chief of staff Jonathan Powell spent most of the weekend in Belfast engaged in discussions with the parties, and US special envoy Richard Haas was also involved in the talks.
However, unionist sources have indicated that a key meeting of the Ulster Unionist Party’s ruling council is likely to be cancelled as there is no breakthrough in sight.
Party leader David Trimble announced the meeting as he put on hold a series of choreographed moves designed to bolster the Good Friday Agreement last Tuesday, claiming more transparency was needed on the decommissioning of IRA arms.
Mr Trimble said his party’s ruling council would meet on Wednesday in order to give republicans time to come forward with more details about what guns had been destroyed.
The party’s ruling council would have to back any deal which would lead to Mr Trimble re-entering power-sharing with republicans, but, with no deal in sight, unionist sources expressed doubts about the purpose of holding a meeting.
“The way things are at the moment, it’s unlikely there will be a council meeting on Wednesday,” the source said.
“With no deal looking imminent, there’s no point in having a meeting because we won’t have anything to put to the delegates.”
Mr Trimble insisted public confidence in the arms decommissioning process must be rebuilt if there was to be any breakthrough.
But as the IRA faced continued demands to lift the confidentiality clause on its third act of disarmament, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams expressed anger that republicans had been blamed for the latest impasse.
Tensions have been running high following the collapse of the latest peace process initiative.
With Tony Blair signalling that the British government would do all it could to find ways of disclosing more information, General John de Chastelain’s office warned its commissioners would quit if they were forced to disclose more information without the IRA’s permission.
Democratic Unionist leader the Rev Ian Paisley is planning to raise in Westminster allegations that Tony Blair misled MPs that he had been given more information about decommissioning from the General than was in the public domain.
