Adams seeks deadline on implementing pact

The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, has called on the British and Irish governments to set a deadline for the implementation of the Belfast Agreement.

Speaking in Belfast on the eve of this weekend's Sinn Fein Ardfheis in Dublin, he predicted that delegates would express their frustration and anger at the delay in the implementation of the Good Friday accord.

"I think looking back over the past year people will be understandably frustrated and angry at the failure, the refusal indeed, of the British government to put in place the institutions which should have been put in place some time in the autumn of last year," said Mr Adams yesterday.

However, he expected a rounded debate on the current state of the political process during the two-day ardfheis in the RDS. He said further talks would take place with the Ulster Unionist Party on Monday as part of the effort to break the log-jam on decommissioning and the formation of an executive.

Mr Adams also wants the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, to reconvene early next week the talks that were adjourned at Downing Street on Thursday. He called for an urgent approach to these discussions.

He said loyalist paramilitary dissidents were exploiting the political stalemate with attacks on nationalists.

"There is also the political frustration that as long as the vacuum is created then you are handing the whole process over to the rejectionists," Mr Adams said.

Much of the urgency for settling the decommissioning deadlock in the pro-agreement camp is because Northern Ireland is about to head into a potentially divisive European Parliament election.

The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, who is standing, said the election would allow voters reject the agreement by supporting his campaign.

So far, six parties have announced they will be running candidates. The UUP's candidate, Mr Jim Nicholson, who is defending one of the North's three Euro seats, faces a potentially difficult campaign because of recent revelations about a previous extramarital affair. While the UUP deputy leader, Mr John Taylor, recently urged Mr Nicholson to withdraw from the race, Mr David Trimble fully endorsed him yesterday.

Of the publicity about the affair, Mr Trimble said, "This is not a story. It is not news and what has been very clear to me looking at the newspapers last night and this morning is that journalists themselves are manufacturing and keeping alive a story that is not news.

"Now the position of the Ulster Unionist Party as a party is absolutely clear and it is that we are here nominating Jim Nicholson and will be supporting Jim Nicholson because Jim Nicholson is the best representative in the European Parliament that Northern Ireland has had and is the best prospect that Northern Ireland has for the next five years."

Mr Nicholson said of Mr Taylor's intervention: "In politics people have lots of different agendas".

Other candidates due to hand in their nomination papers are the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, Sinn Fein chairman Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, Alliance leader Mr Sean Neeson and Progressive Unionist Party Assembly member Mr David Ervine.

The UK Unionist Party has called on leader Mr Robert McCartney to contest the election. His decision is awaited. The Ulster Democratic Party said it would not be fielding a candidate.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the next lord mayor of Belfast could be a Sinn Fein councillor. The prospect of Belfast's first Sinn Fein lord mayor was significantly strengthened when Alliance, which with the SDLP and Sinn Fein holds the balance of power on Belfast City Council, said it was "likely" to support Sinn Fein for the position next year - assuming that the IRA cease-fire has held. The DUP condemned the move.

In a statement, the United Unionist Assembly Party has claimed that there was a "squalid" attempt to create a trade-off, whereby Orangemen would be allowed parade down Garvaghy Road in return for a deal on decommissioning. "Orangemen should be wary of being drawn into such a situation," the UUAP Assembly member, Mr Fraser Agnew, said last night.