A senior Sinn Fein figure has accused the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) of seeking to "push the IRA back to war". Mr Gerry Kelly, a north Belfast Assembly member and former IRA prisoner, said in Gorey, Co Wexford, yesterday that it was his view that unionists were trying to "frustrate the patience of the republican constituency".
He made his comments following a weekend message from the IRA that it would not decommission, and against the backdrop of continuing verbal clashes between senior Sinn Fein and UUP members over disarmament.
"It is increasingly my own view that the UUP are engaged in an attempt to frustrate the patience of the republican constituency and, by undermining the credibility of politics, push the IRA back to war," said Mr Kelly, according to a statement issued in Belfast. "It is clear that so far the unionist engagement in this negotiation was tactical, an attempt to bargain on the all-Ireland bodies in return for the exclusion of Sinn Fein from the executive." As unionists continued to press for some IRA gesture on decommissioning, senior Sinn Fein members including Mr Kelly and Mr Martin McGuinness insisted that unionists were exploiting the issue. The North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, yesterday again deplored what he described as the continuing "failure" of the Sinn Fein leadership to resolve the decommissioning issue. "It is their intransigence that is the problem. We should remind other parties of their duty, which they are failing to carry out," he said. Talks between the UUP and the SDLP are due to resume at Stormont today to break the deadlock over the North-South dimension of the Belfast Agreement and the number of departments that the Assembly will operate.
Speaking in an interview from Stockholm, Mr Trimble said Sinn Fein had a "clear obligation" to use its best efforts to seek IRA disarmament. "We know who's falling down on the job. It's Gerry Adams and the sooner he gets back on the job the better, and the sooner he delivers what he undertook to deliver, the better."
Sinn Fein's Mr McGuinness accused the UUP leader of reneging on the agreement and said his party had a "right" to be in the executive with no preconditions. He said he was "not surprised" by the IRA message that it will not decommission, "because over the last seven or eight months we have seen a constant refusal by the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party to implement the agreement they gave their word to on Good Friday".
"I would question seriously whether or not David Trimble and his party are using their influence positively or negatively. They've shown they've been negative, so what they say they're trying to achieve is further away than ever. These people are playing dangerous games," said Mr McGuinness.
Tomorrow the UK Unionist leader, Mr Robert McCartney, is to table a motion in the Assembly that will again bring decommissioning to centre stage. It calls on the parties to reaffirm their commitment to the Mitchell principles of non-violence, and states: "Any party inextricably linked with paramilitary organisations that have retained armaments cannot give a total and absolute commitment to exclusively democratic means of resolving differences on political issues." Mr McCartney told The Irish Times he expected the motion to be supported by his party, the DUP and the three independent unionist members of the Assembly. Senior UUP figures believe the purpose of the motion is to embarrass Mr Trimble.