Hardliners in the Ulster Unionist Party must set out how they intend to achieve a start to loyalist paramilitary decommissioning as well as pressing for further moves on IRA disarmament, their party leader, Mr Trimble, said tonight.
With two days to go before he faces another meeting of the Ulster Unionists' 860-member ruling council in Belfast, Mr Trimble challenged his anti-Belfast Agreement critics in the party to spell out how they intended to achieve decommissioning by all paramilitaries.
The Upper Bann MP also criticised his anti-Agreement colleagues for proposing a tactically naive plan for Ulster Unionists to withdraw from Northern Ireland's power-sharing government if IRA decommissioning is not completed by February 2002.
He said: "What is this motion that is out? It says that there should be complete decommissioning by the end of February.
"Great. I would love that. But who honestly thinks we're going to get complete decommissioning of loyalist paramilitaries?
"We've had a start on republican decommissioning and a start is significant. A lot of people didn't think we would even get a start.
"But we have got a start. We, of course, have to ensure that that is continued, but we have got a start.
"With regard to loyalist paramilitaries, we haven't got a start and this resolution that has been put calls for complete decommissioning of all paramilitaries by the end of February. I will listen with great interest to hear what ideas people have to secure the complete decommissioning of loyalist paramilitaries in the course of the next three months.
Mr Trimble told his critics in the UUP that previous tactics by the party to secure decommissioning had succeeded because they came as a surprise to others outside the UUP.
He told them that it would be a mistake to go around "telegraphing your punch" when devising tactics in the peace process.