Leaders renew N. Ireland peace efforts

Ahern and Blair will resume talks on Thursday

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish Republic counterpart Bertie Ahern have pledged to redouble efforts to get Northern Ireland's faltering peace process back on track.

Ahern emerged from Blair's Downing Street residence on Tuesday after two hours of talks and said both sides would meet again in the next few days in fresh attempts to implement the 1998 Good Friday peace accord.

The two leaders met against a bleak backdrop for peace in Northern Ireland, where First Minister David Trimble is facing mounting dissent within his Ulster Unionist Party -- the main Protestant political group -- over slow progress on disarmament by republican paramilitary groups.

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"We have agreed on a work programme to intensify contacts over the next few days. I'll be with the prime minister at Biarritz, the European Union summit, where we'll continue with some of the issues we've gone over today," Ahern told reporters.

EU leaders gather for the summit on Thursday.

Blair and Ahern will then resume talks at a British Irish Council meeting, which Ahern said would be held in Dublin next week.

Ahern said he and Blair were aware of Unionist concern over the disarmament of republican groups and changes to Northern Ireland's police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) -- issues which have put Trimble under pressure from his own side.

"Of course we know of David Trimble's difficulties," said Ahern. "What we have to do is find combined solutions. Alienating one side or another gets us nowhere."

Earlier, Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson warned that the peace process would collapse without Trimble and called on London, Dublin and the Protestant and Roman Catholic parties in Belfast to help the embattled Ulster Unionist leader.

"You really cannot underestimate the problems that David Trimble faces. There is a degree of disillusionment amongst Unionists," Mandelson said.

"Unless there's some flexibility ... then we won't have David Trimble, we won't have the Unionists and, in that case, we won't have the Good Friday Agreement -- and that spells disaster for everyone in Northern Ireland."

Trimble said confidence in the peace process would not be restored merely by some sort of political formula.

After the talks, Mandelson could offer little new comfort on the two main issues.

He told reporters he could not say when there would be further independent inspections of Irish Republican Army (IRA) arms dumps.

On contentious changes to the RUC's name and badge, he said legislation had been put forward and the bills were due to go to Britain's second chamber of parliament, the House of Lords, shortly.

"We have a number of amendments we will be introducing but the fundamentals are in place," Mandelson said.

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Northern Ireland Office
10 Downing Street - Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair
Department of the Taoiseach - Government of Ireland
Royal Ulster Constabulary

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