MR GERRY ADAMS said yesterday that the present tension and wrangling between the various unionist parties might be a good thing for unionism.
The Sinn Fein president, replying to questions at the party's headquarters in Andersonstown, said that, in the "bad old days of Stormont", unionism had been a monolith. As time moved on, and as elements of unionism sought to come to terms with a changing situation, infighting was inevitable.
However, he said, the unionist leaders were misleading their own people. In their attempts to put up obstacles against all party negotiations they were playing with the semantics of the situation.
Change was going to take place and a negotiated settlement would come about, in spite of everything the unionist leaderships were trying.
"Sinn Fein is prepared to take a positive, flexible and constructive attitude to every issue. And we recognise clearly that all issues have to be resolved to the satisfaction of all the parties", he commented.
At present, the main responsibility for resolving the problems, in terms of shaping a proper agenda and procedures for all party talks, lay with the British and Irish governments. It was imperative that they should settle these matters so that the parties could begin real talks, led by the governments, on June 10th.
Mr Adams said that Sinn Fein would approach talks with its stated aim of achieving an all Ireland settlement, but also on the basis that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed".
He thought that the means of measuring agreement would become less difficult "once we come to the actual agreement itself". The psychology of people sitting down around the table was that alliances were made, and, apart from the politics or the ideology a rapport was possible.
In terms of dialogue, "which is listening as well as speaking", people would start to see some common ground on some matters and that could be built upon.
Mr Adams was also asked if, in the light of his stated willingness to commit Sinn Fein to the Mitchell Principles, he would condemn the latest "punishment attacks" in Ardoyne at the weekend.
He said that Sinn Fein had already indicated its opposition to such incidents. "We are opposed to it. We want to see proper policing", he commented. "The people of these areas want to be policed. They are law abiding people. They should not be subject to die anti social behaviour of a small group of malcontents. Punishment beatings, so called, are very imperfect ... Sinn Fein is opposed to those."
Mr Adams would not speculate on the significance of Mr John Taylors demand yesterday that there should be a fixed timetable lord arms decommissioning. The unionist line changed frequently, he said. "It depends what day it is. This is Monday. What will he say tomorrow? What did he say yesterday?"