THERE was no indication of any meeting of minds after more than an hour of talks yesterday morning between a Sinn Fein delegation and the Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew.
After the talks, called at short notice, Mr Gerry Adams said that the British Prime Minister should publicly retract his statements in the House of Commons last week and set aside preconditions to all party talks.
Sir Patrick said that elections were necessary to establish the confidence necessary for talks, and he was hopeful that Sinn Fein would understand the process and would agree. The British government would not reverse its policy.
The Sinn Fein president pointed out that the meeting was called at the request of Sir Patrick. They had detailed their implacable opposition to both the unionist proposal for elections and the House of Commons statement of Mr John Major.
Elections should take place after negotiations, said Mr Adams. "I pointed out in the discussion that if Mr Major was really so concerned about elections, he should call a Westminster election.
"And essentially I think that the onus is very much on the British government to clarify their position, to retract on the points put forward by the British Prime Minister and to join with the Irish Government and the rest off us in moving the situation forward to meet the commitment of all party talks by the end of February."
He stressed "There is no going back to Stormont as far as Sinn Fein is concerned, as far as nationalists throughout this statelet are concerned."
He continued "The British Prime Minister should clearly, if he has notions on elections, put those where they belong into the twin track process and into all of the other political process discussions.
When he emerged shortly afterwards, Sir Patrick said it had been a useful meeting.
The most sensible way of describing the proposed electoral process, he suggested, was as "elections to the talks process". Such elections would determine who would take part in the talks process, after they had passed the electorate's test of democracy and commitment to peaceful methods.