Urgent talks held to rescue peace process

Britain and Ireland were making urgent efforts to rescue the latest peace process initiative last night after its unexpected stalling over IRA arms decommissioning.

Attempts were being made to find a way to disclose more details of the guns and equipment put beyond use by the IRA this week. The process was left on hold by David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, because, he said, there was not enough transparency about what had been decommissioned.

A breakthrough is now needed before campaigning for Assembly elections on 26 November starts, but peace process participants were encouraged because no full-scale "blame game" had broken out.

Although a certain amount of political sniping went on, recriminations were at an unusually low level in a city where furious disputes have often followed difficult moments in the peace process. Contacts between the elements were being kept up, with representatives of Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists meeting last night.

Tony Blair told the Commons the Government was "working hard to find a way to try to disclose" more details of the decommissioning than had been revealed by Canadian General John de Chastelain. The Prime Minister told MPs: "Under the decommissioning legislation, it is open to a paramilitary organisation to decommission with confidentiality. That is the arrangement they entered into with General de Chastelain."

He added: "We are not at liberty to disclose that information, but we are working hard to find a way to try to disclose it. On the basis of what we know, people would be satisfied if they knew the full details."

Quentin Davies, the Tory spokesman on Northern Ireland, described Tuesday's events as "an appalling shambles", accusing the Government of failing to clarify in advance what was to be said about the decommissioning.

In the Dail in Dublin, the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said he knew a lack of detail over IRA decommissioning would prove problematic, adding he had been reluctant to travel to Northern Ireland because of concerns about the decommissioning element. He went on: "Of course, while General John de Chastelain gave a large amount of details on it, he couldn't say there was 95 of this, or 36 of that or 11 of the other. I knew he couldn't say that and I also knew it had the potential for someone to say we need to know the exact amount."

Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, said there were now profound difficulties because of what happened on Tuesday. He added: "If this is to be sorted out in the short term, that clearly means within the next few days, because then it will have to be put off until after the election because there is really no other way of dealing with it."

And the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party launched an attack on Mr Trimble on a theme which can be expected to be a familiar refrain in the election campaign. The DUP deputy leader, Peter Robinson, declared: "These events highlight the total shambles and incompetence at the heart of the Ulster Unionist Party. Through its actions it has once again demonstrated that it is not fit to negotiate for unionism. Their new slogan should not be 'Simply British'. I think it should be replaced by 'Simply Stupid'."