AS the international panel, headed by former US senator, Mr George Mitchell faces a growing backlog of last minute requests for meetings, it was conceded yesterday that its crucial report may not be available until the weekend or early next week.
With its list of commitments to consultations and repeat consultations building up, the International Body on Decommissioning admitted that the Thursday deadline for its report to the two governments is not likely to be met.
The body sat successively in Belfast and in Dublin yesterday, meeting in turn the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), British ministers of state, Mr Michael Ancram and Sir John Wheeler, and a Sinn Fein delegation led by the party's president, Mr Gerry Adams.
Mr Mitchell, who is chairman of the three man panel, insisted that it would not be a setback if the report is delayed by a few days. He said the brief postponement might be necessary, simply because such a large number of people and organisations wished to make representations that it would be physically impossible to facilitate them in the time nominally remaining.
The UUP delegation which met the international body in Belfast yesterday was led by the party leader, Mr David Trimble, and its security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, who said afterwards that they had urged the body to take further time if that was required in order to produce a report that was "more positive and constructive".
They indicated that they fell the report may not now emerge, until next week, and said they expect to have another meeting with Mr Mitchell and his, colleagues.
After the meeting, Mr Trimble elaborated on his party's attitude to the possibility of paramilitary groups agreeing to dispose of their own weapons. He said his delegation had emphasised to the international body that there had to be the beginnings of a "credible" process of decommissioning, band credibility means it has got to be something which is clearly verified."
The UUP was aware of proposals that paramilitaries could decommission their own weapons, "but we have insisted that if that course is taken it has got to be done in a properly supervised and controlled manner, where the people of Northern Ireland can have confidence that genuine decommissioning is beginning as part of a process designed to dispose of the entire inventory".
In the face of strong opposition by the SDLP and Sinn Fein leaderships to the UUP proposal for, an elected body as a vehicle for political negotiations, Mr, Trimble insisted that the concept had been misrepresented.
He conceded that his early use of the term "assembly" in this regard had caused confusion and said that it would be better not to use that word.
"People think that when reference is made to an assembly we are talking about a body that would have an administrative, maybe a legislative role, that might be some sort of return to Stormont. Now that is precisely what we're not talking about."
The proposed elected body would be more akin to a convention, and would have a limited time span of two years at the maximum. It would not represent an internal settlement but would be aimed at getting everyone into discussion.
In a further series of bilateral talks yesterday, the Alliance Party met the Progressive Unionists Party, and the Workers' Party met the Ulster Democratic Party.
