Twin Bills to break Ulster impasse

COLIN BROWN and

RUPERT CORNWELL

Ulster Unionist leaders last night said John Major will introduce two Bills to create an elected body in Northern Ireland and a monitoring body to deal with IRA arms, if he can get cross-party agreement.

David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, met the Prime Minister at Downing Street and stepped up the pressure on Dublin to agree to an elected body to bring all the parties together.

He said the legislation would establish an international "verification" commission recommended by the Mitchell report to oversee the decommissioning of IRA weapons at the same time as talks got under way in the elected body.

The Irish Republic was still resisting the plans for the elected body, and holding out for all-party talks to start by the end of February as agreed by Mr Major in November.

And Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, said in Washington yesterday that his party would not participate in any elections before all-party talks on Northern Ireland's future, which he insisted should begin "without preconditions".

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Sir Patrick Mayhew, made it clear London believes the February deadline will be missed, and is pressing instead for agreement on the elected body to be reached by the end of the month.

"I think it would very difficult to get the necessary legislation in time for the end of February but I very much hope that, as a result of the political track, within that time scale, agreement could be reached on the way ahead," Sir Patrick said.

Sir Patrick and Dick Spring, the Irish Foreign Minister, remained at odds over the plan for an elected body at a meeting in London yesterday.

The two ministers agreed to step up inter-party talks, and will meet again next Wednesday in Dublin.

Irish sources said: "They didn't make any progress, but they did agree to meet again and keep the process going."

Speaking after meetings with Irish-American Congressional leaders, Mr Adams attacked the elections proposed by Mr Major as "turning democracy on its head. Elections have a part to play after the all-party talks, but not as a precondition".

Sinn Fein would have nothing to do with them as presented by Mr Major.

The Sinn Fein leader was trying to persuade the United States to press Britain to drop the elections, and instead agree to begin the all-party discussions by the end of February.

"I see no reason why all-party talks cannot start by 28 February," he declared.

However, this time the White House seems less inclined to step in. Anthony Lake, President Clinton's national security adviser, who also met Mr Adams yesterday, has indicated that, however unhappily, the administration will go along with the election plan.

n Feilim O'Hadhmaill, an IRA member who was jailed for 25 years in 1994, has lost a High Court appeal against his conviction. He claimed the jury was pressured into convicting him on a conspiracy charge instead of one of possessing explosives.