Trimble 'should release details of SF deal'

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble was tonight challenged to release details of the agreement he reached with Sinn Féin during last autumn’s failed peace process deal.

The challenge from Nigel Dodds, a leading member of the rival Democratic Unionists, came after it emerged Mr Trimble had written to DUP leader the Reverend Ian Paisley about talks between their parties.

Mr Trimble said he wanted to discuss with the DUP the future of negotiations aimed at restoring the Stormont Assembly.

But in a withering response, Mr Dodds said the UUP leader had still to indicate when he intended to publish “the statement he was prepared to make last October as part of the process putting Sinn Féin/IRA back into government”.

The North Belfast MP said: “The Democratic Unionist Party has now asked to meet Mr Trimble and his colleagues three times to establish the exact nature of what was promised to Sinn Féin/IRA.

“What policing and criminal justice powers was he prepared to give to Sinn Féin?”

Efforts to restore devolution in Northern Ireland stumbled twice last year over Ulster Unionist concerns about IRA intentions.

In April 2003, the IRA and Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams were unable to satisfy unionists and the British and Irish Governments in a series of statements that republicans would end all paramilitary activity.

Last October, a series of carefully choreographed statements was put on hold by Mr Trimble when the head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning General John de Chastelain was unable to provide detail about the IRA’s third act of disarmament.

In subsequent Assembly Elections last November, the Reverend Ian Paisley’s overtook the Ulster Unionists to become Northern Ireland’s largest party.

Mr Dodds said tonight it was clear the choreography of last October fell apart before “all the sordid details of the deal between the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Féin/IRA” could be revealed.

The former Stormont Social Development Minister said: “The time has come for the truth about commitments given to Sinn Fein/IRA to be publicly aired.

“Is it not the case that the statement Mr Trimble was set to make last October, and which he so far refuses to publish, was set to go further in giving policing and justice powers to Sinn Féin/IRA than had been his stated public position?

“The public are entitled to know the detail of the Trimble October 2003 deal.

“Unionists have seen concessions made by Trimble to the IRA in the Belfast Agreement. They have witnessed the further concessions made by Trimble at Weston Park and are seeing the Joint Declaration concessions that Trimble either agreed or acquiesced being implemented.

“The UUP leader agreed to so-called normalisation proposals which are being progressively implemented and acquiesced in the amnesty for on the runs, which the Government will soon deliver.

“Yet Mr Trimble has never come clean with the elements of the deal he put on hold last October nor has he admitted the extent to which any of this secret deal is still binding upon him and the Government.

“The evasive behaviour of the Ulster Unionist Party will make many unionists ask: What has David Trimble got to hide?”