Spring, Mayhew to meet parties on Monday

THE Tanaiste, Mr Spring, will meet the Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, in Belfast on Monday to begin an intensive round of multilateral consultations with the Northern parties on their preferred elective process leading directly to all party negotiations.

The preliminary arrangements for the proximity type talks were made by members of the Anglo Irish liaison group of officials at a meeting in Dublin yesterday.

Mr Spring and Sir Patrick plan to hold joint meetings with representatives of the SDLP and the Alliance Party on Monday. They are also seeking meetings with the parties close to the loyalist paramilitaries, the Progressive Unionist Party and the Ulster Democratic Party, on the same day.

It is understood that Mr Spring and Sir Patrick will offer to hold a joint meeting with the Ulster Unionist Party in London later in the week. But given that the multilateral consultations can he held "in whatever configuration was acceptable to those concerned", it seemed possible last night that Sir Patrick would go ahead with such a meeting if the UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, refused to meet Mr Spring.

The intensive round of meetings, which will continue until Wednesday week, are designed, in the joint communique agreed by Mr Bruton and Mr Major last Wednesday, to reach agreement on proposals for a broadly acceptable elective process "leading directly and without preconditions to all party negotiations" on June 10th.

They also aim to reach agreement on "the basis, participation, structure, format and agenda of substantive all party negotiations". They will consider whether there might be advantage in holding parallel referendums, North and South, on the same day as the elections, "to mandate support for a process to create lasting stability, based on the repudiation of violence for any political pose".

Meanwhile, Government confirmed yesterday that if not two, meetings had place between the Sinn Fein leadership and Government since the Anglo Irish summit on Wednesday. The over all impression created, one source said, was that Sinn Fein leaders were committed to a restoration of the IRA ceasefire.

Government sources also confirmed yesterday that Mr John Hume, the SDLP leader, and Mr Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein president, did not have a copy of the joint communique when their meeting with the IRA began last Wednesday. The meeting did not address the issues in the communique directly.

The Taoiseach, speaking in Bangkok yesterday, said he hoped at this stage that the republican movement would take the time to examine the communique and come to the only conclusion it was possible to come to. He told RTE "We now have a definite date for all party talks it's the 10th of June of this year. Therefore the condition that Sinn Fein said was necessary for them to get the IRA to stop has been fulfilled."

The ardchomhairle of Sinn Fein had a wide ranging discussion on the joint communique yesterday, including a report from Mr Adams on his joint meeting with Mr Hume and the IRA on Wednesday.

Following the meeting, the national chairman of Sinn Fein, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said that while there was satisfaction that "there appears to be a fixed date for talks to begin", the refusal by the two governments to accord the Sinn Fein electorate equality of treatment should be reconsidered by the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister.

"A successful peace process needs to be inclusive" he said.