Ulster Unionists and the British and Irish governments must be "reasonable" about what can be achieved in the coming weeks, the Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams said last night as he put his party on an election footing in Northern Ireland. Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor, reports.
Mr Adams held his third round of talks with the UUP leader Mr David Trimble at Stormont yesterday evening aimed at restoring elections, after which he briefed party members on the political way ahead.
He told a gathering of Sinn Féin TDs, former MLAs and party activists from all over Ireland at Stormont yesterday that the party must prepare for autumn elections in the North, and said Sinn Féin would again be the story of European and local elections in the South next year.
While "formally" putting Sinn Féin on an "election footing" in Northern Ireland, he qualified his comments by stressing that it was uncertain whether the British prime minister would trigger an autumn poll. Regardless, republicans must be ready to combat an election.
In Staffordshire yesterday, Northern Secretary Mr Paul Murphy said he was hopeful that elections would be called in or around November.
Last October Mr Blair made clear that IRA acts of completion were required to inject momentum to the stalled political process. The Hillsborough Joint Declaration in the spring required a commitment from the IRA to end all activity in order to assist in restoring devolution.
Mr Adams however last night warned against too high an expectation of what republicans might deliver to the current negotiations. He did not elaborate on what he meant by these remarks, although a Sinn Féin source said that the parties to the talks must not "set the bar too high".
Mr Adams, in comments directed to the Taoiseach Mr Ahern and Mr Blair last night said: "Let's be reasonable and rational about what is do-able in the immediate term, particularly when others have failed to live up to their responsibilities." And to Mr Trimble and Ulster Unionists in general he said: "The unionist leadership has to be reasonable about all of this." He did not provide any detail on how last night's meeting with Mr Trimble went apart from saying it was part of an "ongoing engagement". But before the meeting he indicated that this engagement was positive.
"I think it is fair to say there are elements within unionism who, despite hesitancy in the past, clearly want this to work," he said.
As negotiations reach an intensive and sensitive stage Mr Adams was careful to be pretty general and aspirational in his comments last night. He did say however that he envisaged an Ireland free of paramilitarism but did not say when this might happen.
"What I am trying to say is of course there are challenges and of course the end of this process will end up with the situation where there won't be armed groups, including the IRA, active on this island, that we will have an entirely demilitarised and peaceful situation. But that is a journey that we are all on," he said.
Meanwhile, the former UUP minister Mr Dermot Nesbitt told a separate conference in Stormont yesterday that republicans must convince unionists that violence would be abandoned for good. He said it was an issue that went "to the very heart of democratic values".