THE UUP leader has pressed his proposal for an elected body in the North in further correspondence with the Tanaiste. He has also rejected the concept of joint management by the two governments of preparatory political talks with the various parties in the latest exchange of letters.
Mr Trimble has dealt with points raised by Mr Spring in a more considered way than in his reply to the Tanaiste's preliminary approach on December 1st.
At that time, Sir Patrick Mayhew and Mr Spring had written in parallel to the leaders of each of the political groupings in the North, inviting them to begin the preparatory talks.
Mr Trimble's reply a few days later read: "We are not prepared to negotiate the internal affairs of Northern Ireland with a foreign government."
In media interviews, the UUP leader described Mr Spring's invitation as "rather impudent", and "a silly stunt".
The UUP yesterday released the text of a subsequent letter from Mr Spring, and Mr Trimble's reply to it.
Writing on December 18th, Mr Spring defended the two governments' joint initiative on the basis of the Joint Communique of November 28th and the Downing Street Declaration of December 15th, 1994. "Given that the remit of the preparatory talks is to prepare for all party negotiations which the two governments intend should lead, in the words of the Downing Street Declaration, to a new political framework founded on consent and encompassing arrangements within Northern Ireland, for the whole island, and between these islands, it is hard to imagine how these talks could be adequately prepared other than through the close co operation and involvement of the two governments," the Tanaiste wrote.
Mr Spring asserted that his approach had not departed from existing precedent or from what had been agreed between the two governments. The Irish Government was not seeking to participate in talks dealing with relations within Northern Ireland, he added.
Given the vital need for dialogue, he hoped that the UUP would "be willing to participate in the preliminary talks on the full understanding that these talks have an open agenda, allowing your party to put forward your views on how you see the best way forward".
He invited Mr Trimble to meet him, "to discuss how the two governments and the parties might reach widespread agreement on the basis, participation, structure, format and agenda of substantive negotiations, including on the relationship between the various strands".
He told the UUP leader: "It would, of course, be open to you in that context to raise matters relating to the Anglo Irish Agreement and, the Constitution of Ireland . . ."
Mr Spring also told the UUP leader: "We have it in our power together to lay to rest the old antagonisms and suspicions which caused so much unnecessary suffering in the past".
Replying, in a letter dated January 11th, Mr Trimble insisted that the best way to approach substantive negotiations was through an elected body, and that "only those who can obtain a democratic mandate in these new circumstances should be considered for participation in those negotiations".
It would be necessary at an appropriate stage to agree on how the Irish Government could participate "on relevant issues", but it would be "premature and somewhat presumptuous to try to settle those matters now without the participation of all those who may meet the criterion for inclusion in the negotiations".
Mr Trimble disagreed with Mr Spring's suggestion that the 1991-92 talks, in which both governments (and the UUP) were involved, had been managed jointly by the two governments.
"There was no joint management by the British and Irish governments of those talks," Mr Trimble wrote. "The concept of joint management is deeply; flawed. The two governments are two distinct parties who represent different interests and cannot with integrity portray themselves' as acting with identical views."
He also asserted that the concept of joint management was "inconsistent with equality of esteem for the other participants and with a genuine search for agreement, freely entered into".
Mr Trimble added that the UUP had continued close contact with the British government and the Alliance, DUP and SDLP, in the hope that from these contacts "there will soon emerge agreement on the role and structures of the elected body so that we can set in motion the procedures for an election in the spring or early summer".
He invited Mr Spring's ideas on this timetable and the other criteria he had set out.
The correspondence appears to confirm Mr Trimble's reluctance to engage formally in the twin track process, at least for as long as the Irish Government remains centrally involved.