Trimble and Adams to meet again
Ulster unionist leader David Trimble and Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams are to continue their discussions on reviving the Northern Ireland peace process, it emerged today.
Mr Adams confirmed in West Belfast that the two leaders had agreed to hold their fourth meeting since pro-Good Friday Agreement parties and the Irish and British Governments launched a new bid to bring back the Assembly and power-sharing executive.
While he would not confirm the date of their next meeting, the West Belfast MP, who held talks with Mr Trimble yesterday, said: “We have agreed to meet again.
“It’s part of the network of discussions which are going on. I happen to think that it is a very, very important part of it and in many ways, arguably, the most important part of it.
“They are necessary discussions at this time and we continue with them until we hopefully come to some conclusions.
“It’s work in progress.”
Devolution has been suspended since last October when allegations of IRA spying threatened to destroy power-sharing.
Both governments and other parties are hoping that Sinn Féin and the IRA will address their concerns about paramilitary activity by republicans.
They want a statement from the IRA which will prove that they are on a course of abandoning all forms of paramilitarism.
Mr Adams, however, today stressed that there were issues about the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement which also had to be addressed if a formula for reviving the Assembly and power-sharing government were to be concocted.
“There is always a concern when the media gets itself into a frenzy and it is always usually about republicans,” he said.
“There is a lot of stuff to be done by the two governments. It’s there in public terms what they have not done.
“We all engaged for some time around how much of the Good Friday Agreement was complete or not complete.
“There was then a joint declaration which was actually longer than the Good Friday Agreement which showed the catch-up that they had to do.
“There are parts of the joint declaration which are outside the terms of the Agreement. It is a very difficult issue for republicans in terms of this so-called international monitoring commission.
“There is the issue of the unionists where they have in the past either walked out or threatened to walk out of the institutions, with the result that they have been pulled down.
“So there is a collectivity about all of this and we just need to have a sense of that.
“The Governments need to be reasonable and rational about what is do-able at this time.”
