SF presses governments to amend settlement plan

The focus for the talks which resume at Stormont today will swing between Belfast and London as Sinn Fein continues to vent its opposition to the BritishIrish blueprint for a political settlement.

At the weekend, Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, rejected the AngloIrish heads of agreement document as the future basis for the Stormont negotiations. However, he said that Sinn Fein would remain in the talks to oppose the document.

Mr McGuinness, accompanied by the party's president, Mr Gerry Adams, will have talks with the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, in London this evening. Earlier, the Sinn Fein delegation will return to Stormont intent on overturning the British-Irish paper as the basis for future negotiations.

Mr McGuinness, in a number of broadcast interviews over the weekend, said that the British and Irish governments had made a "serious mistake" by publishing the paper. He accused the two governments of surrendering to the "Orange card" of loyalist violence.

"I think it is fair to say that this document has gone down very badly within Sinn Fein", he told the BBC. "Wider afield, there is a lot of anger in the nationalist community that what we have seen is a situation where the governments have effectively succumbed to the `Orange card'. We have not accepted the document as the basis for negotiation.

"We are opposed to the document, and we are going into the talks to oppose the document, because we are absolutely convinced that there can be no internal settlement. Sinn Fein will not be part of an internal settlement in the North."

Today's Stormont talks will deal with Strand One matters internal to Northern Ireland, while tomorrow's session will address the more crucial North-South issues.

Despite British-Irish assurances that the Framework Document - with its reference to North-South bodies with "executive" functions - is still on the table, Sinn Fein believes that the two governments have considerably diluted the executive element of the body in the blueprint.

Mr McGuinness said that Sinn Fein would be forcibly making such an argument at Stormont and in this evening's "urgent" meeting with Mr Blair. Sinn Fein intended to oppose the proposals "tooth and nail".

"These propositions, heads of agreement, were presented to the talks table from a barrel of unionist and loyalist guns. Over the course of the last four weeks, four Catholics have been killed by loyalist death squads. Up to a dozen have been wounded."

Mr McGuinness repeated that there was no hope of an agreement unless the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr David Trimble, engaged in "meaningful negotiations" with Sinn Fein.

Asked about the possibility of a return to IRA violence, he said: "All of us must not give up hope. All of us have to hope that the two governments will act in a very dynamic way and face up to the mistake they have made over the course of the last week. We intend speaking to them about that."

The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, expressed "surprise" that Mr Trimble had accepted the document as a basis for negotiation. Describing it as the Framework Document "revisited", he said that proposed changes to Articles 2 and 3 would merely be cosmetic and that the North-South Ministerial Council would be an all-Ireland executive body.

"The Ulster Unionist Party has put its hand to a process that is seeking to elevate republican terrorism, release republican murderers, provide an executive role for Dublin in the internal affairs of Northern Ireland, undermine British sovereignty over Ulster and provide legitimacy for Dublin's illegal claim to our country", Dr Paisley said.

The DUP's deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, accused Sinn Fein of engaging in a "bluff" to extract further concessions from the British government. Despite Mr Trimble's protestations to the contrary, the proposed NorthSouth body meant "executive authority on an all-Ireland basis", he added.

Mr Trimble passed his first party leadership test since the publication of the British-Irish document when he briefed 60 UUP councillors on the proposals on Saturday. Mr Trimble described the meeting as "positive", saying that it had enabled him to consult party members and update them on the talks process.