Trimble set to quit Ulster Executive

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, JUNE 29. A last-ditch attempt by the British and Irish Governments to avert the resignation of Mr. David Trimble as head of the power-sharing administration in Northern Ireland has failed, plunging the stalled peace process into a free fall.

Long faces greeted a Downing Street statement on Thursday, acknowledging for the first time the inevitability of Mr. Trimble's resignation on July 1 as the republicans refused to make any concessions on arms decommissioning under what they called threats of ultimatums. The next six weeks, in which a successor to Mr. Trimble would need to be elected while efforts to persuade the republicans continue, would be crucial to the future of the Good Friday Agreement.

The statement came at the end of a fruitless round of talks which the British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Mr. Bertie Ahern had with political leaders in Belfast to break the deadlock arising out of Sinn Fein's unwillingness to get its paramilitary wing, the IRA, to start laying down its weapons - a key element of the Good Friday Agreement. The Sinn Fein continued to link decommissioning with its own demand for more radical police reforms and scaling down of the British security presence in Northern Ireland, particularly in Catholic dominated areas.

The statement, reflecting what commentators described as a ``grim assessment'' of the crisis, was unusually blunt and shorn of any official gloss. It said: ``If we are being realistic, it is unlikely that sufficient progress will be made in the next few days to prevent the First Minister (Mr. David Trimble) resigning. But that is a matter for him, and this process will continue past that.'' Downing Street, it was stated, had deliberately adopted a stark tone to ``soften'' the impact of Mr. Trimble's departure, when it finally comes on Sunday.

Later, a weary Mr. Blair said more talks would be held next week but stressed that progress on weapons decommissioning was important for the peace process to move on. ``It is essential if we are to have a stable process in Northern Ireland that weapons are put beyond use, that there is a commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means,'' he said. Repeating a line used by the former U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton to emphasise the danger of a deadlocked peace process, he pointed to the situation in the Middle East where the consequences of the breakdown of communication had been serious. ``There is no other solution than to sitting down and working out the problems that remain in order, that they are dealt with so that every single aspect of the Good Friday Agreement is implemented,'' he said.

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Section  : International
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