Full text of David Trimble's statement

"There is a clear agreement between us and republicans that there should be greater transparency.

"There is a clear agreement between us and republicans that there should be greater transparency.

We had made it very clear to republicans, to the governments and to General John de Chastelain that what we need in this situation was a clear transparent report of major acts of decommissioning of a nature which would have a significant impact on public opinion and demonstrate we were in a different context.

Unfortunately we have not had that.

There may possibly have been those substantial acts of decommissioning but we have not had the transparency or an adequate report.

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Now under the agreed sequence the next step would have been a number of statements from myself about our desire to see the administration go forward and our willingness to enter into an administration again.

Everybody knows about my desire in this respect and everybody knows how we have worked over the last number of weeks in order to have meaningful elections to an assembly that formed an administration.

Because of the result of what the IICD (the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning) has done we probably now have less confidence in the process than we had an hour ago.

Because of that I regret that I am not in a position to make those statements. We are now in effect putting the sequence on hold."