JOINT Irish-British proposals for the conduct of all-party talks on Northern Ireland have drawn an angry response from the leader of Ulster Unionist Party Mr David Trimble.
The proposals provide for a three-stranded approach, with the Government having a limited input into the internal Northern Ireland strand.
There will also be a "management committee" representing the two governments which would monitor and oversee all aspects of the talks. It has been agreed that no single item - including decommissioning - will be allowed to inhibit the progress of the talks.
Details of the consultative document, which follow on from the intensive discussions of the past two weeks, were revealed last night on the BBC Newsnight television programme.
Speaking from Washington, Mr Trimble said that the document placed "a very, very serious question mark over our relations with the Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, and the Northern Ireland Office".
He said that the document had been produced in a "very sneaky" way, which had undermined his party's relations with the British government.
Mr Trimble said that there were a lot of things wrong with the document and added: "I suspect that the silly people in the Northern Ireland Office and the Irish Government who prepared this will have to, go back to the drawing board.
On the question of a management committee to oversee the talks, Mr Trimble said that the concept was "absolutely daft.". The idea of such a committee was absolutely unacceptable to him.
He added: "It is a great concern to us that the communique of February 28th said that the Mitchell report would be at the top of the agenda in any talks, the first thing to be dealt with, and the document was trying to introduce other things before Mitchell. That is simply not acceptable. It is not on."
Later, Mr Trimble told The Irish Times's Washington Correspondent that he hadn't seen the document until a copy was faxed to him last night. He said that he had had a message from Northern Ireland Minister, Mr Michael Ancram, last night, which assured him that the document was simply consultative and could be changed.
Mr Trimble said that the Government leaders had not mentioned the document to him during their talks last Monday night in Dublin. He had also spoken to Sir Patrick Mayhew on Tuesday, and he had not told him about it either.
The leader of the SDLP, Mr John Hume, told The Irish Times's Washington Correspondent that he had not seen the document and knew nothing of its existence.
A Tory backbencher, Mr David Wilshire, last night denounced the suggestion that Dublin should have some role in talks involving internal arrangements in Northern Ireland.
A Government spokesman last night denied the existence of a joint Irish-British document.