Northern Ireland's peace process is caught in a "dangerous crisis" because Ulster Unionist leader Mr Trimble allowed hard liners to set the agenda in recent years, Sinn Féin's Mr Martin McGuinness claimed today.
In a hard-hitting attack on the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr McGuinness told his party's Ard Fheis that Mr Trimble reneged on commitments he gave to republicans during crucial peace process negotiations last year.
The Mid Ulster MP told the conference in Dublin: "David Trimble knows the Agreement is good for our society but since April 1998 he has allowed his political compass to be set by Ian Paisley.
"This is what has driven his 'ducks into the water, ducks out of the water' approach to the political institutions.
"For this has been part of his wider battle within unionism.
"As Ian Paisley set the unionist agenda of opposition to the Good Friday Agreement, David Trimble's biggest mistake was to respond by trying to out-Paisley Paisley."
In a report to delegates on political developments over the past year, Mr McGuinness detailed the sequences agreed between the Ulster Unionists, Sinn Féin and both Governments in two failed negotiations in April and October of last year.
The IRA, he said, acted in good faith on both occasions but were badly let down by Mr Trimble's party and both governments.
The former Stormont Education Minister said the political process in Northern Ireland "tilted into political crisis" in September 2002 when Ulster Unionist leader Mr Trimble joined forces with his internal rival Mr Jeffrey Donaldson at a meeting of the UUP's ruling council.
At that council meeting, Mr Trimble threatened to walk out of the power sharing institutions if the IRA did not take steps to wind down.
However a raid on Sinn Féin offices at Stormont and arrests of four people for an alleged IRA spying operation were manufactured, he claimed, by the British Security Services in October 2002 to help the Ulster unionists avoid getting the blame for bringing down the power-sharing government.
Mr McGuinness said a joint declaration produced by the British and Irish governments last year did not completely satisfy his party during negotiations to re-establish the Stormont executive early last year.
"Let's be absolutely clear about this declaration," the party's chief negotiator said.
"Although it deals with many of our concerns, it is a bilateral position agreed only by the two governments.
"It is not a Sinn Féin position. It does not and cannot supplant the Good Friday Agreement."
Mr McGuinness said the joint declaration, however, was seen by Sinn Féin as a testament to how London and Dublin had failed to implement many aspects of the 1998 agreement.
Mr McGuinness also revealed that the IRA authorised a third act of putting weapons beyond use in a bid to break the deadlock but said that that initiative was rejected by unionists.
The Mid Ulster MP said the script was the same in the second set of negotiations last October.
"Protracted negotiations, Sinn Féin's secure commitments, from both the governments and the unionists, the IRA are persuaded to take yet another initiative - which they do - David Trimble reneges, the governments in turn renege and the process is put on hold," he said.
"Back to square one, stalemate."
Mr McGuinness said that prior to the sequence to restore devolution last October, Mr Trimble gave the Sinn Fein leadership "his solemn word of honour" on the agreement.
However he did not follow through on his word.