Meeting fails to shift IRA arms logjam

DAVID MCKITTRICK

Ireland correspondent

The president of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, and the Northern Ireland Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, yesterday failed to break the logjam in the Irish peace process when they met at Stormont in Belfast.

The two sides showed no signs of making progress in the dispute over whether arms decommissioning should precede round-table talks, or vice- versa.

The lack of movement increases the importance of tomorrow's Anglo- Irish summit at Chequers involving the Prime Minister, John Major, and the Taoiseach, John Bruton.

Sir Patrick also travelled to Dublin yesterday for pre-summit talks with the Irish Foreign Minister, Dick Spring. This meeting made some progress, although final agreement eluded the two governments.

Failure to reach accord at tomorrow's summit would plunge the peace process into crisis, given that the meeting will represent the best efforts of the two governments to resolve the de-commissioning impasse.

Sinn Fein has been pressing for quick movement towards round-table discussions while making it plain that the IRA will not contemplate decommissioning a single weapon until a political settlement emerges.

This was the third meeting between the two men. At their last encounter Mr Adams made a number of suggestions to Sir Patrick.

The Sinn Fein president said after their meeting: "We were looking for a positive response to propositions which had been put to him, and which we saw as enabling everyone to move to all-party talks without anyone having to climb down. Unfortunately, and I am disappointed to say this, he was not able to respond positively to those suggestions."

Sir Patrick described their meeting as valuable but said a gulf remained. Insisting that a start had to be made on decommissioning, he said others would not come to the table unless that happened.

He declared: "We are not prepared to destroy political progress and the political process by calling talks where there will be a large number of empty chairs, because that would be to destroy it."

Sinn Fein yesterday criticised the Labour leader, Tony Blair, for declining to meet party representatives during his three-day visit to Ireland this week.

A spokesman said this showed "little imagination or leadership or understanding, particularly when the peace process is in crisis."

The republicans drew little comfort from Mr Blair's interview with a Dublin newspaper in which he supported the government's stance on decommissioning.

In another development, fringe parties close to loyalist paramilitary groups announced they had agreed to travel to Dublin to meet Mr Bruton later this month. Gary McMichael, of the Ulster Democratic party, said: "I would like to see the loyalist case being put forward in a strong manner because it is a strong case. We have nothing to be afraid of in going down to Dublin and making the Irish government ware of what our fears and hopes are."