Trimble resists calls for SF dialogue as pressure mounts

Despite growing pressure Mr David Trimble has again refused to meet the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams. The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader said yesterday he was not prepared to "feed Gerry Adams's ego" through face-to-face dialogue.

The Alliance party leader, Lord Alderdice, became the latest politician to urge Mr Trimble to deal directly with Sinn Fein and its talks team, in the interests of pushing forward with the peace process.

While Dublin, the SDLP and Sinn Fein itself have consistently argued for direct contact between Mr Trimble and Mr Adams, it is also understood that the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, wants the Stormont negotiations to be fully inclusive.

At present Sinn Fein and the UUP meet regularly with other parties in the same room at Stormont, but the unionist politicians will operate only through the chair, and refuse to engage directly with Sinn Fein. Following Mr Blair's meeting with Mr Adams, Mr Martin McGuinness and other senior republicans in Downing Street yesterday, further pressure has fallen on Mr Trimble to change his tactical stance.

Lord Alderdice, speaking at the Northern Forum yesterday, said he could understand suspicions unionists might have about Sinn Fein, because Alliance shared those suspicions. "But that is why it is important to meet. Meeting them face to face allows me to speak with certainty about their position," he said.

"If David Trimble wants to be able to accuse Gerry Adams of not being realistic, and be believed by nationalists, he should meet with Adams face to face," Lord Alderdice added.

"If the republican movement returns to the use of violence they must not be allowed any excuse to justify it. By refusing to meet with Adams, unionists in general, and David Trimble in particular, are giving Sinn Fein yet another stick with which to beat them," he said. The Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said that if political opponents such as Mr Blair and Mr Adams could have such a ground-breaking meeting surely it was also time for Mr Trimble to realise the necessity of direct contact.

Mr McLaughlin said that Mr Trimble should "open his mind up to the potential created by the new situation and accept the need for unionists and Sinn Fein to engage in real and meaningful dialogue with each other".

Mr Trimble, so far, has been unmoved by the urgings. He described Mr Adams's request for a meeting last night as a "silly little stunt". "It would only feed his ego, which doesn't need it, and more importantly it would enforce his delusions," said the UUP leader.

He again accused Sinn Fein of not realistically engaging in the talks. "We know the broad outlines of the settlement the talks process is leading to. Sinn Fein on the other hand are in a fantasy world," Mr Trimble said.