First Minister dampens speculation about shift in position on arms issue

With the target date for the devolution of power to the Assembly just seven days away, Mr David Trimble has moved to quash speculation…

With the target date for the devolution of power to the Assembly just seven days away, Mr David Trimble has moved to quash speculation that he is preparing to significantly redefine his position on IRA decommissioning.

And in an apparent rebuke to Mr Ken Maginnis MP, Mr David Kerr, press secretary to the First Minister, has warned senior Ulster Unionist representatives to "stay on message".

Eight days ago, Mr Maginnis told the London Times that his party was prepared to allow Sinn Fein some "wriggle room" on the timing of IRA disarmament.

By this, Mr Maginnis suggested that the creation of the executive and decommissioning could happen "concurrently" provided there was an agreed and unbreakable timetable for the achievement of total disarmament by May 2000, by way of a process which had a start, a middle and an end.

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However, on Friday, in terms which party sources say would certainly have had to be approved by the leader, Mr Kerr issued a memorandum restating the "party line" on decommissioning.

It says: "There must be a credible and verifiable beginning to the process of decommissioning by the IRA before Sinn Fein can take their seats in an Executive."

And it continues: "Any variation or deviation from this line is being used against our party and is likely to lead to a hardening of the republican position.

"We have the support of our own Prime Minister and the Irish Prime Minister. Public opinion is firmly behind us and the press know that this issue is central to the achievement of lasting peace and stability."

Ending with the terse exhortation "Stay on message. Thank you", the memorandum provides an explanatory note.

"Credible" refers to the quantity of weapons to be decommissioned up-front.

"Verifiable" means the UUP "must have" Gen de Chastelain's word "that the weapons are real", plus "tele-visual evidence to illustrate their destruction".

And "beginning to the process" means "actual disarmament must take place and it must continue as a process through until May 2000".

The cause of tension between Mr Trimble's office and Mr Maginnis is not immediately apparent. Indeed, some commentators wondered why so much prominence was given to Mr Maginnis's latest thoughts on the subject.

For weeks now it has been obvious that, with the deadline upon us, decommissioning - if it is to happen on any formulation proposed by Mr Trimble - would have to take place simultaneously with the triggering of the d'Hondt mechanism for the allocation of executive posts.

In their more benign moments, and they still maintain there is no evidence that the IRA will deliver, that certainly has been a working assumption of both governments. And, for all practical purposes, it is almost certainly Mr Trimble's assumption as well.

True, there are some Ulster Unionists who still attach significance to the "prior" requirement. One said yesterday he could imagine Mr Trimble convening a meeting of the executive on the afternoon of March 10th (or whenever), but only provided a start to decommissioning had been confirmed that morning. However, if a deal was done, he and his fellow rejectionists would, frankly, have been blown out of the water.

For the reality is that even if Mr Trimble entered the executive while awaiting the accompanying sound of Semtex exploding on the Cavehill 24 or 48 hours later, the perception would be that the IRA had met his precondition.

There was some minor excitement last weekend when Mr Andrew Mackay fine-tuned the Conservative Party position to bring it into line with Mr Trimble's.

However, the notion that Mr William Hague had "reined in" his wayward shadow Northern Ireland Secretary was plainly preposterous. For Mr Mackay can see that the move from "prior" to "simultaneous" decommissioning represents a diary adjustment as much as anything - a consequence of Mr Trimble having successfully killed off the intended "shadow" period preparatory to actual devolution.

Some close to Mr Trimble have long argued that the prospect of entering the real, as opposed to a "shadow" executive, might make a qualitative difference to the republican movement. In other words, that they might do this month or next what they resolutely refused to do last June and July. However, there is no sign of it.

Just on Sunday, Mr Martin McGuinness told the BBC's On The Record: "In my view there isn't even the remotest possibility of the IRA responding to this unilateral demand from the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, which amounts to . . . a demand for the surrender of the IRA."

Sinn Fein's problem is that Mr Trimble's demand has been forcibly augmented by the Taoiseach. That said, Mr Ahern, like Dr Mo Mowlam and probably Mr Tony Blair, almost certainly believes that a solution requires both sides to move, as Mr Seamus Mallon said on Monday, from their "absolutist positions".

To that end, some sources normally considered close to Mr Trimble's thinking say he would accept a fairly minimalist decommissioning gesture up front, coupled with a guarantee, underwritten by Gen de Chastelain, that the IRA would have fully decommissioned by May 2000.

That would mean abandoning the notion of "benchmarking" by way of a rolling process, which Mr Maginnis has made virtually his own since the debate first began.

It would also lay Mr Trimble open to the charge of permitting the IRA to retain its armoury virtually intact and, with it, the continuing unspoken pressure on the Patten Commission. Mr Trimble, on the other hand, could claim that the republican movement had crossed the "psychological barrier" and bowed to the requirements of the agreement.

But might the same not be said and argued should Mr Mallon and Mr Ahern deliver a definitive IRA commitment to, and timetable for, decommissioning after the creation of the executive?

Mr Maginnis was "on message" when he demanded a substantial "down-payment" as proof of republican bona fides. But in his assertion that "it is the absolute certainty of achievement, not the methodology, that preoccupies my party" might he have stumbled upon the territory of a possible compromise? More crucial still, short of that long-demanded "product" up front, can Mr Mallon and Mr Ahern otherwise deliver that certainty of achievement?