Adams calls for electoral pact with SDLP

The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, has called for an electoral pact with the SDLP for the Assembly elections. He also said decommissioning must be dealt with, but that for the moment people were "just glad that the guns are not being used".

Speaking at a press conference in Belfast, Mr Adams said Sinn Fein was in favour of an electoral pact with the SDLP, although the issue had not yet been discussed within his own party or with the SDLP.

Asked about the suggested pact, the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, said: "The objective of this election isn't pacts between two parties on one side of the divide - the objective is a partnership between the representatives of all sections of our community."

Mr Adams called on all republican and loyalist paramilitary groups to end their campaigns of armed violence. "Sinn Fein has consistently called on armed groups, whether the British army, or the RUC, or loyalist groups, or these other republican groups, to follow the IRA's example," he said.

"I would like to appeal to people to call complete military cessations right across the range of the armed groups," added Mr Adams. He said Sinn Fein would co-operate with the International Commission on Decommissioning. "We don't have guns. We are armed only with our ideas, our analysis, and whatever mandate we will receive. It's my view that all these issues will be resolved, if there's a political will to resolve them."

Asked could he foresee republicans casting their third preferences for the Ulster Unionist Party, he replied: "That's a matter for the voter . . . but if people want to vote down the card for candidates of their choice from within the wider spectrum of the Yes vote that is a matter for themselves."

He said people should have acknowledged how far "Sinn Fein had stretched itself" in agreeing to sit in an Assembly. Part of this strategy was to ensure that Sinn Fein could expand the "all-Ireland characteristic" of the agreement, but also because "we want to do business with unionists".

He added: "Mr Trimble has to keep saying Yes. One of the first things he must say Yes to is for his party to meet our party, and to try and work out the type of partnership that is required." Mr Adams urged the Orange Order and Mr Trimble to cancel contentious marches this year, including Drumcree. "I would call on the Orange leaders not to go down Garvaghy Road. I would call upon Mr Trimble, because it is in his constituency, to use his influence to make sure that the people of Garvaghy Road are freed up from all that difficulty."

He said he could not understand how Mr Trimble would not speak to the representatives of the nationalists of Garvaghy Road when he was their MP. Out of such a discussion an accommodation could arise, he said. Mr Adams said that if Sinn Fein won sufficient votes, it would take its ministerial positions within the Assembly executive. Sinn Fein would sign up to and "honour" a commitment to following democratic and non-violent means of advancing its political goals. But there were, and could be, no preconditions to Sinn Fein taking executive positions, he added.

Mr Adams repeated that the RUC was "totally unacceptable" to nationalists. He accused the RUC of "confronting" him as he visited a polling station in Divis Street in west Belfast on Friday. He said some police on the street still referred to him as a "Fenian bastard".

"Now what mentality does that indicate. We are trying to get a Yes vote. We are trying to bring people along a road that is fairly rocky, and what happens? Five or six armed men confront me. What message does that give? So there needs to be a new policing service, and that needs to be worked out," said Mr Adams.