The Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, said he had spoken to President Clinton by telephone last weekend and asked him to raise the decommissioning issue with Mr Gerry Adams, who is currently on a fundraising trip in the US. President Clinton had undertaken to do this, he said yesterday.
Mr Trimble also called on Mr Adams to say "clearly and unambiguously that the terrorist campaign is over". The pressure on Sinn Fein, he said, would be maintained and there was no question of the issue being sidetracked or forgotten about. "There is no support or justification for Sinn Fein/IRA retaining their weapons and Semtex," Mr Trimble said at the first news conference of his party's Assembly election campaign yesterday.
He said people wanted to hear Mr Adams say that there would be "no resort to violence by any element of his organisation in the future". Confidence in the Belfast Agreement was being undermined because of the failure of republicans to make such a pledge. He called on them to nominate a representative to liaise with the decommissioning commission.
Mr Trimble said he believed comments made by the political representatives of the UDA and the UVF were an indication that those organisations were more willing to decommission weapons than the IRA. Questioned about the decision not to allow the anti-agreement MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson to contest the Assembly election, Mr Trimble said the party had "always taken the view of `one man, one job' ". Party officers have ruled that only Mr Trimble and his deputy, Mr John Taylor, will be given special dispensation to contest the Assembly elections while holding their Westminster seats.
"The rule isn't absolute, but it is a rule, and I think people should realise that the Ulster Unionist Party is a party of rules," Mr Trimble said.