Trimble to meet with Sinn Féin

Mr David Trimble, is to seek an urgent meeting with Sinn Féin leaders Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness to discuss the …

Mr David Trimble, is to seek an urgent meeting with Sinn Féin leaders Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness to discuss the IRA ceasefire.

The Ulster Unionist Party leader, who was speaking after a meeting with police chiefs in Belfast about alleged IRA involvement in last month's break-in at a Special Branch office, said that if the IRA was involved it was clear the ceasefire had broken down.

He called on the two Sinn Féin leaders to demonstrate they were still in control of elements of the IRA.

"It must be obvious to Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness that continuing paramilitary activity from the Republican organisation threatens their political project and that it is hugely in their interests for that paramilitary activity to diminish and to cease," he said.

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It must be obvious to Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness that continuing paramilitary activity from the Republican organisation threatens their political project. . .
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First Minister Mr David Trimble.

The IRA, in a statement released at the weekend, said republicans were being blamed for the break-in, alleging that "securocrats" in British military intelligence were trying to destablise the peace process.

Sinn Féin President Mr Gerry Adams is also under pressure to travel to Washington this week to give evidence before a US Congressional Committee on alleged links between republicans and Colombian Marxist rebels. It is expected he will decide today whether to travel to the United States.

The US House of Representatives' International Relations Committee is holding public hearings on Capitol Hill after three Irishmen were arrested last August by Colombian authorities on suspicion of training Marxist paramilitaries.