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N. Irish crisis over IRA arms move
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The British government and the IRA are being urged to reveal details of the paramilitary group's latest act of decommissioning after a bid to bring peace to Northern Ireland ended in chaos. David Trimble, leader of the pro-British Ulster Unionist party, held talks with ministers in London on Wednesday, a day after he rejected the Irish Republican Army's weapons move as too secretive. Elections will go ahead for the power-sharing government on November 26, but the atmosphere remains tense after Trimble brought Tuesday's carefully choreographed events crashing down to earth. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair promised Wednesday to keep working hard to secure the "enormous prize" of a successful peace process. He told the UK House of Commons during Prime Minister's Question Time that the uncertainty over decommissioning was an "unsatisfactory situation," but ministers were working hard to "find a way" to disclose details of the arms put beyond use. "I believe, on the basis of what we know, people would be satisfied if they knew the full details." He added: "And I entirely understand from the perspective of the unionist community... that they need to be sure that what is being said is a substantial act of decommissioning is indeed a substantial act of decommissioning." UUP leader David Trimble said the Irish Republican Army (IRA) had not been "transparent" enough in disclosing the quantity and type of weapons decommissioned -- saying it was necessary to reveal to build public confidence. "Recovery would be very simple -- let the prime minister put the information he has in the public domain," Trimble told the BBC. "Let the republicans remove from (arms monitor General John) de Chastelain the limitations that have prevented him from giving a full report -- let him do so." De Chastelain, who carried out the inventory, will only go so far as to say it was the "largest" amount when compared with the other two acts of decommissioning of IRA weapons which took place on October 2001 and April 2002. But the republicans say they were acting under the confidentiality terms agreed with the UK and Irish governments. To reveal the quantity and types of weapons would be "humiliating," nationalists add.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams told a press conference Wednesday that a "satisfactory explanation" had yet to be given by the UUP as to why it had failed to deliver its speech in the agreed sequence of announcements. Adams added: "I think it is important that when a commission established under an agreement which has its remit in legislation (in both the Irish and UK governments) that when the head of that commission witnesses an event in which IRA weapons were put beyond use in accordance with this agreement ... that it is up to the governments to validate it and uphold it." Trimble is under intense pressure in his own Ulster Unionist party over the peace process and the accusation that he is ceding too much power to nationalists. He said a period of time would allow the Irish republicans to drop their demand for confidentiality if they wanted to go forward. The assembly was set up under the 1998 Good Friday peace deal. An election date for the end of November had been expected after a series of secret meetings between Adams and Trimble became known. Sinn Fein has been pressing Britain on several fronts, most controversially, to hand over control of Northern Ireland's justice system and security forces to the Belfast administration. Relations between Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists soured last year over allegations of an IRA spy ring at the Northern Ireland assembly building, Stormont. The assembly was later suspended by the British government after Northern Ireland's protestants refused to continue in government with Sinn Fein until the IRA disarmed. Elections had been scheduled for May, but were delayed despite pressure being exerted by Washington.
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