Hume may cut SF link if there is no ceasefire

MR JOHN HUME has indicated that if the IRA does not quickly restore its ceasefire he may sever the Hume-Adams link and proceed in the peace process without Sinn Fein.

The SDLP leader said in West Belfast yesterday that he hoped the IRA would soon declare a ceasefire. However, regardless of this, his party would continue negotiating with the other parties to the talks process.

Implicitly suggesting that he might break the Hume-Adams connection if an IRA ceasefire was not forthcoming, he added: "I hope that the IRA will declare an immediate end to violence so that inclusive negotiations can commence. In any event, the SDLP is determined to negotiate a settlement for the people of this island."

Mr Hume was speaking in West Belfast during a canvass with the local SDLP MP, Dr Joe Hendron. "The peace process must continue, as there is an overwhelming will within our community to bring our 27 years of conflict to an end", he said.

Meanwhile, the SDLP candidate in Mid-Ulster, Mr Denis Haughey, rejected yesterday's Sinn Fein ardfheis comments by his main nationalist election rival, Mr Martin McGuinness, that a vote for Siren Fein would help to consolidate the peace process.

Describing Mr McGuinness's remarks as a "feeble attempt to coerce the electorate into supporting a party which has been unable to deliver a ceasefire from the military wing of its own movement", Mr Haughey said that "futile" IRA violence was the biggest threat to political progress.

"The IRA are damaging the prospect for an inclusive talks process and are alienating all those at home and abroad who have worked to make those totally inclusive", he said.

The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, also criticised the ardfheis comments of the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams. "When Adams talks about negotiations without preconditions he is talking about negotiations while the IRA continues its murder campaign", he said.

Sinn Fein was mistaken to believe that it could "cobble together a deal with a future Labour government to stitch up unionists". It would find to its cost that no British government could bind the unionist community and no agreement could stick unless it had the consent of pep Northern Ireland," Robinson added.