THE UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, will today launch an attack on the joint approach of the British and Irish governments to the decommissioning issue, making further progress at the inter party talks unlikely this week.
When the talks resume at Stormont today, the UUP leader is expected to seek an urgent meeting with the Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, to express his party's opposition to proposals advanced to him in a letter from Sir Patrick last week.
The UUP will follow this up with a press conference at party headquarters this afternoon at which Mr Trimble and his "Talks Decommissioning Committee"
will outline their position and reaction to the proposals.
Prior to a party executive meeting at the weekend, Mr Trimble said the response of the two governments to the decommissioning issue had been most inadequate. He said their suggestion was that the issue be referred to a committee "which would operate as some sort of a fourth strand". This was totally unacceptable to the UUP, he said. "We're going to tell them that they have got to go and think again", he added.
Mr Trimble indicated that a restoration of the IRA ceasefire would not be sufficient. A timescale would be needed for starting the decommissioning of arms.
Another senior UUP figure, Mr Ken Maginnis, said at the weekend that reassurance would be required "in a very tangible sense" that there was not going to be, in five or 10 or 15 years' time, a resurgence of IRA violence.
The UK Unionist Party leader, Mr Robert McCartney, claimed at the weekend that Mr Trimble was perceived by the British government to be the weak link within unionism. He warned Mr Trimble that the UUP would split if he caved in to the government's demands and fudged the decommissioning issue.
The DUP has called for a full debate between the parties on the decommissioning issue. Councillor Sammy Wilson said he hoped all unionists would stick to the line that only full decommissioning was the way forward.
The arms issue is therefore likely to dominate proceedings at the Stormont talks early this week, with the parties being drawn into a further prolonged series of bilateral discussions.