The United States special envoy to Northern Ireland Richard Haass has stated his support for a unionist-supported mechanism for monitoring paramilitary activity in the province.
The scheme, expected to be announced by Secretary of State John Reid next week, will involve the appointment of an individual or group to record acts of violence by loyalists and republican terror groups which are supposed to be on ceasefire.
The IRA has already rejected the plan and the SDLP leader, Mark Durkan has stated his opposition to the idea in preference for the publication of a regular index of all paramilitary violence.
Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly has criticised the British government for "stepping outside the Good Friday Agreement" at times of crisis in Mr Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party.
The North Belfast MLA, whose party had a "good meeting" with Mr Haass in Belfast on Thursday night, said the British government had granted another concession to Mr Trimble with its plan for monitoring paramilitary activity.
"Will it bring (Ulster Unionist MPs) Jeffrey Donaldson and David Burnside behind the Good Friday Agreement?" he asked. "I don't think so."
Mr Haass meanwhile said he believed that in principle it [ceasefire monitor] could have a positive input to public debate and have the potential to do "more good than harm".
Speaking in Belfast at the end of an intensive few days of talks with the local political parties and the British and Irish governments, he said that while there was not wholesale support for the idea, the bulk of views leaned on the positive side.
He said monitoring "put sunlight on the full range of paramilitary activities".
Increasing transparency could play a part in the public debate and would "likely serve a useful function".
Mr Haass said: "The British Government would have to pick a person or persons of great integrity to undertake the role.
"If this is done right, I don't see how it would lead to the wool being pulled over anyone's eyes.
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own set of the facts." Commenting on the state of the IRA and loyalist ceasefires, he said he saw "tremendous gain" over the past five years, but the situation was not perfect. "There is way too much violence".
But Northern Ireland was in transition and that transition was not completed, he said.
The IRA had made positive steps with two acts of decommissioning and an apology for Bloody Friday. But he added: "At the same time there are question marks and there are problems and not limited to the IRA but to Loyalists as well."
Mr Haass, who returns immediately to Washington to report to President Bush, said the US administration would be closely monitoring the upcoming trial of three IRA suspects in Colombia.
He said there could be no continuing role between organisations in Northern Ireland and terrorist groups around the world such as the Farc in Colombia which, he said, was the main destabilising organisation in that country.
The US is a keen supporter of the Colombian government and only this week granted military aid to that country.
America's concerns about past connections remained "because things done in the past can have repercussions for the present and the future".
The Alliance first mooted the idea of violence monitoring and Mr Trimble swiftly seized on the idea. Mr Trimble said he "had a very positive meeting" with the US envoy and monitoring had been one of the topics they had discussed.
The Northern Ireland First Minister said Mr Haass was a welcome visitor to the province. "We are glad to see that even in times of international crisis that he is keeping in close contact with the situation.
"A lot of the discussion focused on the recent violence we have had in Belfast."
He said he was pleased to see today's confirmation that CCTV cameras were to be put up on the interface in East Belfast.
That, the question of ceasefire monitors and policing, had all been discussed with Mr Haass, said Trimble.
