UUP president Rev Martin Smyth MP, an agreement sceptic, said party unity was important. Supporting the UUC meeting he said the party stood for "open, frank and democratic discussions".
Rank-and-file Ulster Unionists must decide over the next three weeks whether the party should remain in the Northern executive with Sinn Féin or call a halt to the power-sharing arrangement and possibly precipitate early winter Assembly elections.
Senior Ulster Unionist officers yesterday agreed to a demand from party dissidents for another Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) meeting to discuss whether the party should continue in the executive with Sinn Féin ministers Mr Martin McGuinness and Ms Bairbre de Brún.
The meeting will be held in south Belfast on Saturday September 21st. The Ulster Unionist officer board also decided to grant special dispensation to anti-Belfast Agreement MPs Mr Jeffrey Donaldson and Mr David Burnside to contest the Assembly elections.
Mr Donaldson and Mr Burnside must first pledge to follow party policy and guarantee that they will meet Westminster and Assembly demands of their constituents.
The 14-member team of officers, which includes party leader Mr David Trimble and Mr Donaldson, met for more than three hours on Lord Brookeborough's Colebrooke estate in Co Fermanagh yesterday to discuss a range of issues, including the council meeting and the dispensation request from Mr Burnside and Mr Donaldson.
Trimble supporters have characterised the move to call the UUC meeting as another attempt to unseat Mr Trimble. Ahead of the meeting yesterday, party chairman Mr James Cooper warned that another UUC gathering would be counterproductive.
He said party policy should be left to Mr Trimble and that "party in-fighting" must stop. He wanted to see Ulster Unionists focused on May's scheduled Assembly elections and feared a September UUC meeting would turn into a personality attack on Mr Trimble.
But by the end of the officer board meeting yesterday evening, he had conceded that, in accordance with party rules, the UUC meeting must go ahead. He said there had been a "very satisfactory outcome" to the officer meeting, and added, in relation to his earlier anxieties about the UUC, "we have gone past that argument".
"We are determined as an officer team to make sure that the meeting is constructive, that it is on a positive note, and I feel that we can have a successful meeting and reach a consensus that will be one which the party will approve and which probably will unite the party," added Mr Cooper.
Anti-agreement unionists such as Mr Donaldson and Mr Burnside have called for action against Sinn Féin. The British and Irish governments and other pro-agreement parties are concerned that the No wing of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) could trap Mr Trimble at the UUC meeting into withdrawing his ministers from the executive and forcing early Assembly elections.
Asked would the UUC call for sanctions against Sinn Féin, Mr Cooper said he was not prepared to speculate on what might emerge from the meeting.
Over the next three weeks Mr Trimble must ensure, if he is to remain secure as leader, that he - and not party hardliners - is determining party policy. He appears relatively sanguine about the threat to his leadership as he is flying out to the Earth summit in South Africa this weekend and is expected to be away for more than a week.
