The Northern Secretary today embarks on a new round of consultations with representatives from all parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The talks are seen as an attempt by the British government to inject momentum into the peace process.
Dr Mo Mowlam held meetings with the First Minister, Mr David Trimble, and the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, yesterday which a spokesman described as "useful and constructive". A Downing Street spokesman said the discussions were to explain the legislation which would be put through Westminster to facilitate the transfer of power to new institutions set up under the Belfast Agreement.
After an engagement in Lurgan, Co Armagh, yesterday, Dr Mow lam said the process was nearing a successful conclusion. "The finishing line is in sight. All we have got to do is to make sure we put the effort and momentum in to get there. I'm convinced we'll make it." Success meant establishing an executive and overcoming the decommissioning problem. "All of us have got to take another step."
Dr Mowlam's comments were echoed yesterday by the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, in his New Year message to Northern Ireland, which appeared in the North's morning newspapers. Mr Blair said a start to decommissioning would create more confidence between the communities than any other single step.
The Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, responded by calling on Mr Blair to move The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, said that
Mr Blair stressed that there was a clear obligation under the Belfast Agreement to hand over paramilitary arms. "Confidence on all sides remains the key to progress, confidence that everyone keeps to their obligations under the agreement." It represented an "enormous step" that the guns were now, by and large, silent, "but all of us are committed to the aim of seeing the guns not just silent, but taken out of politics for ever".
Mr McLaughlin said he was concerned that Mr Blair had not noted the "negative role" played by unionism which sought to "constantly minimise the potential of the agreement". The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, said Mr Blair was "just saying it would be a nice thing to have decommissioning, but there is no laying down of the law as far as he is concerned".
Mr Trimble said yesterday his officials and Mr Mallon's were working on a report to be presented to the Assembly next week, which details the agreement on the setting up of the North's government departments and the new North-South bodies.
The deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr John Taylor, said the agreement reached between his party and the SDLP in December represented a success for the UUP and the party's central objective. It pinpointed discrete areas to be dealt with by cross-Border implementation bodies without triggering the formation of an executive before IRA decommissioning.
Mr Taylor was also critical of Mr Mallon on decommissioning. "For too long, the Deputy First Minister has pretended to be the `honest broker' between the UUP and Sinn Fein-IRA," he said. Mr Mallon did not seem to have "the stomach to fight for an executive where weapons are not used to influence political decisions".