TRIMBLE TO MEET WITH BLAIR TODAY 

The Irish American Information Service

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble was meeting the British Prime Minister today in a bid to get Sinn Féin thrown out of the talks seeking to restore devolution to Northern Ireland.

He walked out of the review of the workings of the Belfast Agreement yesterday because Northern Ireland Secretary Mr Paul Murphy failed to exclude Sinn Fein from the review.

Refusing to kick Sinn Féin out of the talks following the alleged IRA abduction and beating of dissident Mr Bobby Tohill last month was "quite appalling," he said.

Trimble added: "We have to show to paramilitaries our Government will not tolerate such blatant breaches of the peace."

The Prime Minister had talks with Sinn Féin leaders Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness in London yesterday and there has been little or no sign he will do anything to giveTrimble what he wants.

Despite withdrawing from the review talks, Trimble said the UUP would continue to talk to other parties about the general political situation and the paramilitary threat.

Yesterday's talks had a single agenda - at unionist insistence - of alleged continuing IRA activity. Sinn Féin was furious at the single agenda and hit out at Mr Trimble for walking out.

West Belfast Assembly member Bairbre de Brun - leading the Sinn FÉin delegation in the absence of Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness - accused him of engaging in "posturing without substance." 

The following transcripts are courtesy of the Northern Ireland Information Service
 

Program: UTV Live
Date & Time 3 March 2004 – 18.07
Subject: Peace Process

KATE SMITH
Meanwhile, the Taoiseach says he will be appealing to the Ulster Unionists to return to the review talks.

BERTIE AHERN
I think it is important that the UUP have played such a significant role in the peace process, and all of the talks process for the last 6 years, 6_ years now, should stay in the talks. I have been urging the Ulster Unionist Party to stay within the process, I understand their concerns, but I really think that politics of exclusion doesn’t work and it won’t work, so I’m due to talk to Mr Trimble in a few hours time. But, I can tell you now I will be urging him to reconsider his position. This will not help the process, we all have to stay within it and keep working at it, and there’s always ups and downs, and we know that, but we have to stay at it.

PAUL CLARKE
It’s very noticeable that both Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern are involved in trying to get this back on track?

KEN REID
Over the years when this process has been in trouble, it is the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach that really, the in file goes into their in file that becomes the matter, and the 2 Prime Ministers realise that we are actually facing quite a serious situation, a situation which may not mean a return to violence, but certainly a process that has slowed down. So there’s pressure on the Ulster Unionists to get back in and get the review up and running again. But at this stage, I don’t hear anyone predicting that that is going to happen.

PAUL CLARKE
David Trimble has been a regular visitor to No 10 Downing Street over the years. Does he have the influence today that he did have?

KEN REID
Well I think as Fearghal pointed out in his report, he can certainly slow things down, but there’s no doubt that the DUP is now the main unionist party, and their meeting with the Prime Minister next Monday is significant, because the Governments will be saying, come on you’re the main party, let’s see what you can do to get this back on the rails. I think the SDLP will probably be in Downing Street sometime soon as well. But yes, the pressure is now to a certain degree on the DUP.

PAUL CLARKE
What are we to read into the fact that Reg Empey was part of that delegation that went into No 10 today with David Trimble?

KEN REID
That’s very interesting, because we know there has been talk of a coo against David Trimble. David Burnside last Friday, John Taylor has said he would support Sir Reg Empey as leader, Reg Empey was asked today in London if he supported the leader. He said he supported David Trimble but it was the process that was more important. I think it’s a case of perhaps John Taylor, David Burnside and others trying to get Reg Empey to go against David Trimble at the AGM which is on the end of March. I should also add though, that Sir Reg Empey is travelling with David Trimble to the White House, at this stage that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Program: UTV Live
Date & Time: 3.3.04 (18.05)
Subject: UUP Meets PM
 
 

KATE SMITH
David Trimble has been to Downing Street where he has urged the Prime Minister to throw Sinn Fein out of the review over recent IRA activity. And he has also rounded on the DUP for staying in the talks. But it says it doesn’t need any lessons from Mr Trimble.

FEARGHAL MCKINNEY
Back to Downing Street David Trimble and his delegation tell Tony Blair directly why they are walking away from the Agreement Review. Significantly flanked by senior members, including Sir Reg Empey, the party emerged about an hour later to say they were ignoring Downing Street and treaties to go back into the review and urging others to do the same.

DAVID TRIMBLE
And I call now on the DUP to reinforce what we have said over the last few days to reinforce to the Prime Minister the need for him to vindicate those principles of peace and democracy on which the process was founded. I appeal to the DUP too not to abandon the need for there to be a clear commitment to peace and democracy, not to abandon things like the Mitchell Principles of non-violence and democracy on which all the discussions were founded and not to remain in a talks process with Sinn Fein that is in breach of those Mitchell Principles. 

NIGEL DODDS
Well I think people in Northern Ireland will take what Mr Trimble says with a great pinch of salt. He is half in and half out of the talks. He said he would bring the process to an end on Monday. It is now Wednesday and it is still going on. The fact of the matter is that Mr Trimble connived with Sinn Fein, sat with Sinn Fein, negotiated with Sinn Fein and capitulated to Sinn Fein over the last 5 or 6 years. The DUP is not talking to Sinn Fein/IRA, will not be talking to Sinn Fein/IRA and the sooner he follows that line the better.

FEARGHAL MCKINNEY
So where is the review now? Pretty much on life support and while Downing Street is trying to resuscitate it, it could be argued that talks in London yesterday with Sinn Fein, today with the Ulster Unionists and next week with the DUP are in effect killing it off. Some will say that by taking on the DUP here David Trimble is talking tough because of his own internal party difficulties, but there is an irony here that despite his party’s perceived weakness he can still put a break on this process and that despite the DUPs new found strength it cannot as yet be seen to go it alone.

Program: Evening Extra
Date & Time: March 3, 2004 – 17.21
Subject: Peace Process

AUDREY CARVILLE
Martina, we heard there what Sir Reg has had to say. What was the meeting, the tenor of the meeting overall with Tony Blair like today?

MARTINA PURDY
Well David Trimble came out of Downing Street, having spent about an hour there with his former ministers and a few party aides making it clear that he had put it to the Prime Minister, that Tony Blair must act, that there now had to be essentially a zero tolerance of any kind of paramilitary activity. And he used the words that his party were whistleblowers and had power-sharing been ongoing in the middle of this Tohill affair, that his party would have brought it to an end. So tough talk.

AUDREY CARVILLE
Yes, any statement from Downing Street?

MARTINA PURDY
Well, during the course of the meeting, we did hear from Downing Street, and they said they were prepared to listen to the Ulster Unionist Party, that they were in agreement at the main problem right now, was ongoing paramilitary activity, but they said that the focus shouldn’t been taken away from that issue by arguments over the Review, and essentially Downing Street believes that the Review does offer the opportunity to discuss paramilitarism, and to address it. 

And I think, while David Trimble wants sanctions, I suspect Downing Street takes the view that the refusal to restore devolution while paramilitary activity goes on is the sanction, and that no-one is asking David Trimble to share power, but what they are asking the Ulster Unionists and other parties to do is to continue dialogue to resolve the issues.

Program: Evening Extra
Date & Time: March 3, 2004 (17.16)
Subject Peace Process

AUDREY CARVILLE
Why do you want the DUP to withdraw when your party remained in talks with Sinn Fein up until very recently?

SIR REG EMPEY
Well first of all the review process that is ongoing at the moment is looking at things like the size of the Assembly, the number of Government departments and generally speaking tweaking the institutions that previously operated. Now anybody who thinks that sitting discussing those issues at the present moment is going to resolve our problems is deluding themselves. 

Because, let’s imagine that the institutions had been running up until a week ago. They would probably be in crisis today because of the alleged IRA involvement in the Tohill case and we would be facing another suspension. So what I am really saying is that the talks at the moment are sitting looking at how we can make concorde fly better knowing that of course it is grounded and that is where we are. 

So the fundamental problem is not going to be resolved in sitting, talking about improving and doing the minutiae of the institutions because the big issue is whether everybody is committed to exclusively peaceful means and unfortunately we know that they are not and that is where the focus must now go.

AUDREY CARVILLE
Did you support David Trimble in his action yesterday by walking away from the review?

SIR REG EMPEY
Oh yes. I think that generally speaking people feel that it is like fiddling while Rome burns, if one is arguing about the size of Government departments and things like that when the fundamentals aren’t being dealt with and unfortunately both loyalists and republican paramilitaries are still active and they have the capacity between them to cause enormous damage in our community and we are not resolving that. And the Prime Minister made commitments, he made commitments before the referendum, he made commitments in his speech in October 2002 on acts of completion and we asked him today to honour those commitments and to tell us how the Government intends to see that those acts of completion are brought about. 

I think that is where the focus should be in the next lot of weeks. Even Martin McGuinness said that the current review process wasn’t going to resolve things and it has been noticeable that while they put out a second division team in the talks yesterday while Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams were in Downing Street. So it is perfectly obvious that everybody knows that what is going on at the present moment is merely cosmetic.

AUDREY CARVILLE
And of course all this is going on in parallel to what is going on within your own party at the moment too. You will be well aware that David Burnside says he thinks you should take over as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. Will you challenge David Trimble later this month?

SIR REG EMPEY
Well as I said, I was asked a similar question earlier. I am not going to discuss our internal affairs today because I am not going to divert attention from the fact that the crisis we have in the political process is caused by the failure of republicans and loyalists to honour the commitments under the Belfast Agreement and to commit themselves to exclusively peaceful means. And the whole question of paramilitarism is hanging over our community now like a bad smell. 

We can’t get rid of it, even though every effort is being made to encourage people to move towards the political process and we you just had an interview with Alan McQuillan and the steps that are being taken there and I regret to say that our colleagues in the SDLP are simply still trying to play both sides against the middle by saying it is as much the unionists fault as republicans fault. We don’t have a private army, nor do we carry out mob hits in the centre of Belfast in broad day light and Alex Attwood has to face up to that and if the SDLP would take the responsibility seriously then maybe we could make progress.

AUDREY CARVILLE
I’ll try one more time, Sir Reg, do you think David Trimble is a vote loser?

SIR REG EMPEY
I am not going to respond to that because we are here today to concentrate on republican’s failure to honour the commitments and I am not going to allow anything to divert attention from that.

Program: BBC News 24
Date & Time: March 3, 2004 (16.11)
Subject Peace Process

DAVID TRIMBLE
….over the course of the last hour or so. Let me just preface my remarks by saying that what we had in Belfast a couple of weeks ago was a very vivid reminder of the underlying problem that there has been throughout this process in terms of continuing paramilitary activity and that those parties particularly Sinn Fein, which tell us that they are engaged in a transition towards normal, peaceful, democratic society that the incident vividly demonstrates the fact that the transition is not happening. The failure of the republican movement to deliver the acts of completion that the Prime Minister called for 18 months ago shows that they have not yet taken the crucial decision to abandon completely paramilitary activity. 

And you can’t have a credible transition continuing when it is clear that one of the parties has not actually come to the point of making up it’s mind what to do. Now our position consistently through the last five years was that we are prepared to give people time and space to make that transition but the transition had to be made and when people failed to make the progress that we expected we regularly blew the whistle, did that several times through the administration, notably in October, 2002. And if we had been in an Executive then the events of the last fortnight, the events a fortnight ago, would have produced exactly the same crisis in that administration and brought it down. 

Now that is the background. We have come to the Prime Minister to say to him that in this situation there is a duty on him to act and that failure to act is going to render the present process nugatory. There is no point continuing with the Review when it is clear that the underlying problem is not resolved and indeed that the republicans have not come to a point of making the crucial decision on change and on change towards peace and democracy. There is no point in continuing with the process. 

There is a duty on the Prime Minister to act. We have put that case to him. He is considering the matter. I hope he will act in a way that restores credibility to the process, but I can’t tell you at this stage whether he will or he will not. I do have a message though, I have a message to the next person who will be coming in through that door on Northern Ireland business. And that will happen as you know on Monday when there will be a DUP delegation going through. 

And I call now on the DUP, to reinforce what we have said over the last few days, to reinforce to the Prime Minister the need for him to vindicate those principles of peace and democracy on which the process was founded and I appeal to the DUP too not to abandon the need for there to be a clear commitment to peace and democracy not to abandon things like the Mitchell Principles of non-violence and democracy on which all the discussions were founded and not to remain in a talks process with Sinn Féin that is in breach of those Mitchell Principles. So there is a choice for them today.

MEDIA
Unclear

DAVID TRIMBLE
Well our position is that we think that the Paragraph 8 review, that Paul Murphy has been laboriously been trying to conduct over the last few weeks, has no credibility in this situation and we are not going to be part of that particular review. We will engage as we have with the Prime Minister, we will engage with him and possibly with other parties too about the real problem. But what we are saying is the real problem has to be solved and we are not going to give credibility to a process which is in denial of the real problem.

MARTINA PURDY
Unclear ….stay in the review and discuss paramilitarism?

DAVID TRIMBLE
I am not going to go into detail about the discussions we have had over the course. All I am prepared to say is that we have put very strongly the position to him and he is reflecting on that and considering what to do and it would be wrong for me to give any hint or to jump to any conclusion……

INTERVIEWER
Well there is David Trimble after his meeting, just over an hour with the Prime Minister, urging the Prime Minister to act. Of course the Ulster Unionists pulling out of that review of the Good Friday Agreement. Of course it all boils down to that punishment beating of Bobby Tohill which was blamed on the IRA. 

The Ulster Unionists pulling out of that review and very interestingly urging the DUP also to walk away from that review and talks process, whilst as he put it, Mr Trimble, that Sinn Fein is in breach of the Mitchell Principles. He said there is no point continuing with the review when the underlying problem with the republican movement isn’t resolved. 

Let’s go to Belfast, our Ireland correspondent was listening. Fascinating listening to David Trimble there talking about the DUP, we will come back to that point in a moment. But firmly placing the onus on the Prime Minister here.

MARK SIMPSON
And it is clear that that very special relationship that there has been over the years between David Trimble and the Prime Minister seems to be falling apart to a certain extent. That relationship has been so good over the years that Tony Blair’s critics accused him of having this ‘Save Dave’ policy, this ‘Save David Trimble’ policy. But it is clear there is a major disagreement over this issue. There is the tug of war going on with David Trimble saying to the Prime Minister if you don’t chuck Sinn Fein out of the talks I am not going back in. But it appears Tony Blair is standing his ground.