The Ulster Unionists and Sinn Féin have made significant progress towards establishing an agreed basis for a pre-Christmas Assembly election. Frank Millar, London Editor, reports
This became clear last night following a five-hour Downing Street summit which left unionist insiders privately acknowledging for the first time that it is now a question of "when" rather than "whether" the twice-postponed Assembly poll would be held this year.
Although there was no official announcement, November 13th effectively disappeared as the preferred election date after the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, presided over "a series of positive engagements" between delegations led by the Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, and the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble.
The special US envoy on Northern Ireland, Mr Richard Haass, also attended the summit, from which the SDLP leadership was strikingly absent.
However, there was no air of disappointment at the failure to set an election date as Mr Adams and Mr Trimble departed Number 10 to resume their dialogue at the nearby Northern Ireland Office.
Before leaving Downing Street, a bullish Mr Adams told reporters: "We're taking it that the election is going ahead anyway," while refusing to be drawn into "calling" the final point-of-decision "in terms of time". At the same time, official sources suggested the delay in concluding the UUP/Sinn Féin dialogue and deciding the election issue was likely to be "a matter of days rather than weeks".
A number of alternative dates were immediately canvassed - including Tuesday, November 18th - but party and official sources insisted there was no point in such speculation with "a lot of work still to do".
The degree of progress made took some Whitehall sources by surprise, prompting them to revise their earlier pessimistic assessments of the prospects of an "acts of completion" deal enabling Mr Trimble to commit the Ulster Unionists to resume power-sharing with Sinn Féin following an election.
Unionist sources suggested the negotiations had moved substantially beyond the point reached last April when Mr Blair cancelled the election, while refusing to comment on the specifics of any assurances received about "transparency" of future IRA decommissioning or the "language" which might be used to confirm the end of the IRA as a paramilitary force.
However, they expressed confidence that Mr Trimble would be able to win his party's backing for an emerging deal.
However, Downing Street echoed a Sinn Féin caution against any assumption that all the outstanding issues could be resolved ahead of an election. A Number 10 spokesman said it would be "a mistake to think this is in the bag".
A senior Sinn Féin source said: "As ever, the health warning has to be applied. This could fall at the last hurdle as in April when Blair rejected the republican initiative and David decided he didn't want an election."