FORMER US Senator George Mitchell will today attempt to steer the multi party talks at Stormont away from a potentially disastrous confrontation on the issue of decommissioning.
With Mr Mitchell in the chair, a full plenary session of the talks will set out to endorse rules of procedure and then try to reach agreement on an agenda for its subsequent business.
With the talks due to adjourn this week until September, there is great urgency in the task of demonstrating that they can at least take the first basic step of agreeing their own procedures and what they are going to discuss.
Today's session is likely, therefore, to be a marathon one, and the talks are expected to continue tomorrow and Wednesday. If the delegates have to adjourn with no progress to show for over six weeks of work, the political process will be dangerously discredited and the two governments will come under pressure to find new initiatives.
After what appeared to be a significant breakthrough early last week, when a compromise package of procedural rules drafted by Mr Mitchell gained majority approval, the talks hit another major hurdle on Thursday. As delegates moved on to the matter of an agenda for today's plenary session, a dispute arose over the priority to be given to the issue of decommissioning.
Unionists have proposed that a sub-committee or working group should be set up to begin research immediately on mechanisms and modalities of decommissioning, and to report back to the full talks when they reconvene in September.
The SDLP, Alliance and the loyalist parties, the UDP and PUP, have insisted that decommissioning cannot be decoupled in this manner from the substantive talks. It should be addressed and brought forward in parallel with the negotiations on substantive issues, as the report of the International Body on Decommissioning (the Mitchell Report) recommended, they say.
This issue will be a major stumbling block at today's session. Moreover, it is by no means clear that the basic rules of procedure will be passed without a hitch, as the DUP and the UK Unionist Party have tabled a series of amendments which will have to be discussed and dealt with.
A further complication will arise if unionists press their claim that the SDLP has forfeited its right to participate in the talks by resigning from the elected Forum.
Geraldine Kennedy adds:
The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, will lead the Government's delegation at the multi-party talks today and tomorrow. He returned yesterday afternoon from an eight day trip to Indonesia and Sydney as President of the Council of EU Ministers for the Irish presidency.
The Government delegation is also expected to include the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, the Attorney General, Mr Dermot Gleeson, and Minister of State Mr Hugh Coveney.
Government spokesmen were loath to speculate about the prospects of the talks achieving accord today on the handling of decommissioning and other issues in order to enable the agenda to move from procedural to substantive issues in September.