Trimble sets IRA one week deadline
The IRA has just a week to declare an end to its terror campaign if the latest bid to restore devolution in Northern Ireland is to succeed, David Trimble warned today.
With time running out for all sides in Belfast to reach agreement that will allow Assembly elections to take place in November, the Ulster Unionist leader insisted an “inch-by-inch” switch to peace was not enough.
Mr Trimble, who has held a series of talks with Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams amid a major push to restore the collapsed power-sharing administration at Stormont, predicted negotiations were set to intensify.
But he warned: “There’s only a week or so left for progress to be achieved as I understand the timetable.
“Let’s hope that at some point we see the progress that is needed in terms of dealing with continuing paramilitary activity with acts of completion that are needed to enable the Assembly to be resumed.”
The Stormont power-sharing Executive fell a year ago following allegations that the IRA was involved in an espionage plot at the heart of government.
With unionists refusing to return to a cabinet with republicans until the IRA pledges to go out of business, Mr Trimble has been pressing for assurances from the Sinn Féin leadership.
Republicans, however, want guarantees that the Assembly can no longer be brought down by unionists.
Mr Trimble confirmed he was ready to meet with Mr Adams or representatives from the British and Irish governments at any point in order to end the deadlock surrounding the peace process.
But the window of opportunity is closing fast if the proposed November 13 date for holding elections to the Assembly and restoring evolution is to be met.
The Ulster Unionist chief warned his republican rivals that demands for an end to the Provisionals military campaign were included in British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s speech at the harbour commissioner’s office in Belfast last October.
“The whole point of the Prime Minister’s speech was to say the days of inch-by-inch negotiations are over,” he said.
“His intention then, from which he has not wavered, is to change the context and the way in which we are doing it.
“The slow inch-by-inch transition which perhaps was not unreasonable five years ago is unreasonable now, five and a half years after the (Good Friday) Agreement."
