Parties agree collective approach to arms is best

THERE is now recognition that collective political responsibility is necessary to resolve decommissioning and make the Belfast Agreement work, pro-agreement parties have stated.

The North's Political Development Minister, Mr Paul Murphy, said yesterday's 2 1/2-hour talks at Castle Buildings, Stormont, involving pro-agreement parties were "very constructive and useful".

UUP and Sinn Fein leaders were not present at Stormont yesterday, nor was the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon.

The UUP leader and First Minister, Mr David Trimble, was meeting the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, while Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Mallon were preparing for their visit to the US for St Patrick's Day.

The parties meet again at Stormont next Tuesday, with a further meeting possible next week. The main negotiations will resume on Monday week when party leaders are back from the US.

They will have a little more than a week to end the stalemate before the Northern Secretary triggers the d'Hondt formula for creating the executive. She has indicated she will do this on Good Friday, April 2nd.

The parties said that while the main dispute was between Sinn Fein and the UUP, all other pro-agreement parties, as well as the British, Irish and US governments, had to become involved if the arms deadlock was to be broken.

"There is a collective responsibility to try to make this process work. It is not simply a question of one or two or three or even four parties but of the whole of the people who created this agreement," said Mr Murphy.

"And I find a determination there on the part of all the people round the table that there is a collective responsibility to try to find a solution," he added.

Mr Dermot Nesbitt, a UUP Assembly member, said his party was prepared to "turn over every stone possible" to break the impasse. Sinn Fein Assembly member Mr Conor Murphy said he was encouraged by agreement that it was a matter for all the parties to make progress.

The SDLP MP for South Down, Mr Eddie McGrady, said the meeting was "surprisingly good".

Mr Mark Durkan, an SDLP Assembly member, said: "While there have been no blinding new shafts of lights necessarily, there have been interesting side-lights brought on to different issues and different postures, and we can all work on that basis."

Mr Sean Neeson of Alliance said there was an opportunity for the parties collectively to find solutions. "The important thing is to decommission the megaphone diplomacy on decommissioning and for us behind closed doors to try to reach some form of formula whereby we can move the process forward," he added.

Ms Jane Morrice of the Women's Coalition said the meeting was valuable and constructive.

Meanwhile, the UUP deputy leader, Mr John Taylor, in an article in the Washington Post, said Sinn Fein "must live up to its part in the agreement" by achieving some prior IRA disarmament. He added that even one more defection from the UUP Assembly team would give anti-agreement unionists a majority in the Assembly. Unionist insistence for a start to decommission was not "a desire to humiliate the IRA", he said.