Mr JOHN Major moved yesterday to quell backbench Conservative fears that his government has shifted position on the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. It was confirmed last night that British government proposals will not permit the weapons issue to be separated from the all party negotiations due to begin on June 10th.
And while British and Irish officials met in Dublin yesterday, it became clear that unresolved differences between the two governments could come to a head at next Wednesday's Anglo-Irish Inter Governmental Conference, now scheduled to take place in London.
As reported in Wednesday's Irish Times, the British want to refer the decommissioning issue to an all-party committee, to be appointed at the first plenary session of the talks on June 10th. Under the plan, approved by ministers in the British cabinet's Northern Ireland committee on Thursday, the parties would proceed in plenary session to consider the agenda for the negotiations.
But sources in London last night said the parties would not move beyond the business of the opening plenary into substantive negotiation until the committee had addressed the decommissioning issue and agreed how it was to be carried forward.
Sources confirmed that London hopes former senator George Mitchell can be persuaded to chair the decommissioning and believes Mr David Trimble' Ulster Unionists will agree Mitchell's re-involvement those terms.
But it is understood no approach has been made to Mr Mitchell, and there were indications last night that Dublin not yet been fully appraised Britain's proposed approach to the negotiations.
Despite the favourable response given Mr Major's Irish Times article on Thursday, Dublin has not yet received the assurances it considers necessary if republicans are to be persuaded that a meaningful and inclusive process of negotiation is on offer. The Irish Government believes Mr Mitchell's engagement as an independent chairman of the process, or at least as chairman of the Strand Two North/South talks is crucial to attempts to persuade the IRA to reinstate the ceasefire.
Those anxieties will not have been lessened by Mr Major's moves to reassure pro-Union Conservative MPs, amid reports yesterday that up to six of them were considering resigning the Conservative whip as a "last resort" protest over Northern Ireland policy.
Mr Andrew Hunter, chairman of the Conservative backbench Northern Ireland committee, said last night he had received "very significant reassurances" from the prime minister's office "that there has been no retreat from the government's declared position" on decommissioning.