I was asked a fortnight ago by a journalist if my party was split over participation in the Mitchell review. Of course, I answered that the situation was perfectly normal: some members of the party were, as usual, conducting the debate in public in advance of the meetings where the decisions would be made.

Unfortunately, journalists who are so eager to play up apparent splits play down the actual decisions. In fact, the Ulster Unionist Assembly Party decided unanimously to participate in the review, a decision accepted without opposition by the Ulster Unionist executive which has also reiterated the party's commitment to the Belfast Agreement and to the formation of an executive on an inclusive basis.

But, as the agreement makes clear, time and time again, inclusion is only for democrats. Time and time again, I have also expressed the hope that the paramilitaries in general, and the republican movement in particular, would be prepared to cross over the bridge from violence to peace and democracy.

But they have to make that journey. No one else can do it for them. The signposts are in the agreement's reiteration of the commitment to "exclusively peaceful means", the commitment they have made "to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations", the requirement to establish and maintain, "a complete and unequivocal ceasefire". These commitments must be honoured. If they are, republicans will find a ready response from unionists. Indeed, the number of unionists, written off as anti-agreement, who will join in that response, would surprise them.

Sinn Fein's prevarication about the order in which devolution and disarmament should occur is disingenuous in the extreme. The agreement was not absolutely precise on the sequence of events to give those involved the time and space to demonstrate goodwill. It is crystal-clear, however, on the nature of the commitments themselves. And there is a clear implication that decommissioning should have begun last summer; in which case all the new institutions would have gone live in March, as we originally intended.

We know from experience that republicans simply take advantage of compromises on decommissioning. It is thus entirely reasonable, and absolutely necessary, that democrats in Northern Ireland insist that commitments made in the agreement are fully understood and that they will be honoured.

The agreement, which was so laboriously hammered out last year, must be observed in full with no cherry-picking. Those who suggest that fundamental aspects of the agreement can be overlooked do not understand how difficult it was to reach agreement last year.

Those who believe that the republican leadership is sincere in wishing to implement the agreement do them no favours by suggesting that key parts of the agreement can be overlooked. The recent murders and attempted arms importation have deepened unionist suspicions of republican intentions.

Now, more than ever, society needs real proof that the republican movement is committed to peace and democracy. Those who fear the establishment of a Mafia state need to be convinced that republican and loyalist paramilitaries, who cause so much misery, have truly given up violence for good.

Rather than deal with the problems created by their failure to implement their part of the agreement, Sinn Fein try to muddy the waters by saying that we do not want an inclusive executive, and that we do not want a Catholic about the place. The absurdity of this jibe is easily demonstrated by our willingness to set up an executive with the SDLP, if full inclusiveness proves unobtainable. Our problem is, of course, not with Catholics, one of whom, Sir John Gorman, is a senior member of the UUP Assembly Group, but with violence and with those who refuse to give it up.

Nor do we have an absolute problem with those who have a terrorist past. We know that people can change, and that having a past does not disentitle one from a future. But it does place an onus on former terrorists to show that the past has been left behind.

I was happy a few days after becoming leader of this party to welcome into our headquarters a politician who was once a republican activist. But I had good reason to know that he had left that past behind. He is not the only former republican activist with whom I have been willing to work.

To those who convincingly throw off violence there is a firm welcome. Although the hurt of the past can never be fully forgotten, in the right circumstances it can be forgiven, as was evident in the thunderous applause for Vincent McKenna at Saturday's rally in support of the RUC.

Despite numerous instances of republican bad faith I still see the Belfast Agreement as the best chance for stability in Northern Ireland. I hope that the republican movement now realises that there is no way forward other than through full adherence to the commitments made in the agreement. I hope that they will make the historic shift from terrorism to peace and democracy. If they sincerely wish to do this, we will try to make the way as easy as possible.

This is not the place to consider in detail the Patten report on policing. My party has established a working party to consider alternatives to Patten and we will participate vigorously in the subsequent consultation. But there can be no doubt but that the report has further undermined unionist support for the agreement, especially as Patten went out of his way to allege, wrongly, that the most controversial parts of the report were determined by the terms of reference set out in the agreement. He was directed to consider culture and symbols, but the important rider was that they had to have widespread support and reflect the community as a whole.

The proposed abolition of the name and badge certainly does not have widespread support. And I defy anyone to honestly say that the badge of crown, harp and shamrock does not reflect the whole community.

Interestingly, Sir John Gorman at last Saturday's rally told of how in 1922 the new unionist administration wanted to introduce a badge which, with a red hand and other symbols, could have been described as reflecting an Ulster unionist identity. But then the RUC itself, including the "B men", objected and made it clear that they wanted to retain the unambiguously Irish symbols of the old RIC. OF COURSE we know, if only from the correspondence columns of The Irish Times, that the nationalist objection is to the crown. But those who make that objection are breaking the Belfast Agreement. In paragraph 1 of that agreement nationalists accept the "legitimacy" of Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom.

The symbols in question are merely the natural expressions of that legitimacy. To deny them is to deny the agreement. For unionists the acceptance of the constitutional settlement is a very important part of the agreement and went a long way to make acceptable the benefits that the agreement conferred on nationalists. For many unionists, myself included, the British government's response on this matter will be the acid test of the value of this agreement.

We will be meeting Senator Mitchell and all the other parties this week as the review gathers pace. No doubt various ideas will be floated. I have one over-riding question for all of them: "Will it work? Will it deliver the goods?" I am ready to look at any ideas for sequencing, if I think it will work, if I think the other parties are genuine and will deliver their part of the agreement.

In July we thought that Sinn Fein were telling the truth when they told their own members in a leaked briefing that the IRA had made no commitment and that their object was to confuse and divide the other parties.

We hope this time that either Sinn Fein has changed or that the other parties will decline to be manipulated by them. As always, I can repeat the commitment I made through the talks and after the agreement, that this process will not fail for want of effort on our part.

David Trimble MP is the First Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party