YESTERDAY brought repeated firm denials that any sort of background negotiation is taking place between Sinn Fein and the British government, as rumour and speculation continued to generate a momentum of their own in the North.
Meanwhile, the inter party talks at Stormont devoted time to preliminary discussions on what kind of ceasefire should satisfy the requirement of the British government and the unionists that it should be demonstrably credible.
The SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, seemed to definitively quash the weekend reports that he has carried drafts of statements between the British government and Sinn Fein. "I'm not engaged in any backdoor dealing or secret dealing of any description," he said yesterday. "Because secret deals don't solve problems. Such things never work. They always come out in the end and they make things worse."
The Northern Secretary Sir Patrick Mayhew, also dismissed reports that his government was dealing with Sinn Fein. "I have said it categorically: there is no question of negotiating with Sinn Fein, no deals for the IRA, no deals for Sinn Fein," he said.
However, in a somewhat cryptic remark, he seemed to hint that clarification of ongoing policies would not fit into that category: "If somebody represents to us that a restatement of our policy in language that is clear and unequivocal would be helpful, then we will obviously want to consider that - and that's where we are.
The UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, said he believed Mr Hume's denial that he was acting as a go between. However, he also said: "I think Mr Hume has made representations to governments, but I don't think he has had a reply.
"And the government is not as I understand it, engaged in some sort of surreptitious dealing . . . The whole issue, I have to say, is largely a red herring."
Mr Trimble said it was "moonshine" to suggest that there could be a genuine ceasefire and a genuine commitment to peaceful methods forthcoming from the IRA. Such a suggestion, he believed, was being put about by elements within the republican movement merely to distract attention from the real issue, which was whether the Irish Government was prepared to engage in serious discussions with the present parties in the inter party talks.
It was possible to get into substantive talks very soon if the parties were willing to commit themselves to that and not to be diverted by the question of whether or not Sinn Fein was going to participate.
However, Mr Trimble seemed to concede that the verbal terms in which any future ceasefire was conveyed would be an important indicator of the authenticity of intentions - "The first way to show a genuine commitment to peaceful means and the democratic process . . . is by the language by which you renounce violence and embrace peace", he said.
The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, declared that the more the British government said it was not involved in secret negotiations, the more he believed it was involved.
"It seems to me that an attempt is being made to buy off the threat of violence in Northern Ireland and the mainland by giving concessions to IRA/Sinn Fein so that they can find an easy way into the talks", he said.
A DUP statement yesterday said the party would not accept Sinn Fein's entry to talks in the absence of "a demonstrably permanent cessation of violence and their guns being handed over prior to their presence at the talks."
The talks at Stormont entered the fourth week of the debate on decommissioning, but sources indicated that the unionists had succeeded in raising the issue of what criteria any ceasefire should meet in order to be credible and acceptable.
According to one unionist source, the two governments were "putting up a spirited defence" of a ceasefire on the lines of the 1994 cessation.
Sir Patrick Mayhew had said yesterday morning that there had to be an establishment of a commitment to democratic and peaceful methods. "Common sense demands that people establish by their actions that their words can be relied upon", he said.