As the Belfast Agreement early-release scheme reaches its halfway stage, with more than 200 paramilitary inmates having been set free, the North's First Minister has claimed that releases should be linked to disarmament.
With political movement effectively stalled over decommissioning, Mr David Trimble and Sinn Fein's Mr Martin McGuinness have again voiced completely contradictory interpretations of the agreement.
It also emerged yesterday that the Anglo-Irish Secretariat in Belfast is to close before Christmas.
Mr McGuinness said yesterday there would be no prior IRA decommissioning, and insisted such a gesture was not required under the agreement. Mr Trimble accused Mr McGuinness of "repudiating his obligations" under the agreement.
About 400 paramilitary prisoners are due to be released by July 2000, but already, just six months since the agreement was endorsed by referendum, the number of prisoners released has reached 201. Ms Martina Anderson (34), from Derry, and Ms Ella O'Dwyer (37), from Tipperary, walked free from Maghaberry Prison yesterday, having served 14 years of their life sentences for their part in planning an IRA bombing campaign in England in the mid-1980s.
Mr Trimble said decommissioning should take place parallel to releases. "Prisoner releases are linked to the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. People should reflect on that," he added.
Mr McGuinness said yesterday that if there was no breakthrough by the spring, then nationalists would feel the agreement "isn't worth the paper it's written on". He insisted that the responsibility for dealing with weapons lay with the international decommissioning body.
Mr McGuinness said he was working constructively with Gen John de Chastelain, and he accused Mr Trimble of acting as though he were chief of the body. "Unfortunately this issue is being used by the unionists as a blocking mechanism, principally because they don't want Sinn Fein on the executive," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Pressed on why the IRA would not start handing over a few weapons to break the logjam, he said: "I'll give you a good reason. The IRA won't do it. That's the reason."
The Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, said last night: "Martin McGuinness has not helped by saying the IRA are not at all ready. They are digging a hole and digging deeper," she said.
Earlier the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, said he understood how people would object to certain prisoners being released early because a man who had tried to kill him on a number of occasions was also to be set free shortly. "But the reality is that without movement on prisoners there was going to be no agreement."
The UK Unionist leader, Mr Robert McCartney, said yesterday he suspected that the IRA would make a token gesture on decommissioning which Mr Trimble would seize upon as a major initiative. He insisted that any disarmament must be substantial and continuous.
Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has told the Ulster Unionist Party deputy leader, Mr John Taylor, that the Anglo-Irish Secretariat at Maryfield in Belfast is to close before Christmas.
Staffed by 26 full and part-time British and Irish civil servants, it was formed from the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. Nationalists welcomed the secretariat because they viewed it as giving Dublin an important influence in Northern Ireland matters. Unionists objected for the same reason.
Mr Taylor described the closure as "great news. But it must also mean the removal of Irish Government civil servants from Ulster soil back to the Republic."
