Sinn Fein has warned that the Belfast Agreement cannot be renegotiated following reports that the Northern Ireland First Minister, Mr David Trimble, believes the end of October deadline for the creation of a North-South council cannot now be met.
Mr Trimble and the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, met for the first time yesterday following their differences last week over interpretation of the Belfast Agreement.
Reporters had gathered at Stormont, but Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon did not give a press conference after their meeting. A spokesman for Mr Mallon nonetheless described the meeting as "useful and businesslike".
While relations between the two are said to be fairly cordial there is no indication of a break in the deadlock over IRA disarmament and the creation of a shadow executive.
Mr Mallon is said to be still vehemently contradicting Mr Trimble's assertion that the agreement demands IRA decommissioning before a shadow executive can be formed. Mr Mallon wants the creation of a North-South body tied in to the formation of the executive.
An Ulster Unionist Party source said yesterday that Mr Trimble now believed that the impasse would prevent the formation of the North-South council by the October 31st deadline, set out in the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Trimble, according to the source, believed that because the decommissioning dispute has prevented progress in areas such as the appointment of ministers and the formation of departments, the machinery necessary for establishing the council is not in place.
He has argued that the 10-day US trade mission that he and Mr Mallon are embarking on at the weekend will further upset the timetable for the North-South council. Mr Trimble is said to be opposed to Mr Mallon's suggestion that the trip be cut short.
The Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, expressed concern at the reports. "David Trimble cannot be allowed to renegotiate the agreement or deny Sinn Fein and the SDLP the right to ministerial positions. The October 31st deadline must deliver the executive and all-Ireland bodies as part of the Good Friday agreement which Mr Trimble himself was part of negotiating," he added.
"There is a clear and understandable expectation from the vast majority of the people on the island that almost six months after the agreement document was agreed David Trimble and Seamus Mallon would have overcome any obstacles in the way of establishing the executive," Mr McLaughlin said.
Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon, as well as the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, are due in Blackpool today for the Labour Party conference where Mr Tony Blair is expected to devise some process by which the decommissioning obstacle can be surmounted.
Mr Trimble is becoming increasingly isolated on the issue. The other parties, including the DUP and the Progressive Unionist Party, reject his argument that the agreement implicitly demands IRA disarmament before an executive is formed.
According to the wording of the agreement, Sinn Fein is obliged to use its influence "to achieve the decommissioning of all paramilitary arms within two years" of the passing of the referendums, which is May 2000.
Mr Nigel Dodds, a DUP Assembly member for North Belfast, accused Mr Trimble of wrongly conveying the impression during the referendum and the Assembly election that prior decommissioning was demanded in the agreement.
"If David Trimble had wanted to ensure that Sinn Fein would not get into the executive without prior decommissioning he should have made sure that that clause was in the agreement. He tried to pretend there was something in the agreement that wasn't there," Mr Dodds added.
Mr Mark Durkan, an SDLP Assembly member for Derry, said that the UUP and Sinn Fein should now "stop their pantomime politics". He said the two-year timetable should not be an excuse for republicans to "long-finger" decommissioning and added that the UUP should "read the agreement clearly and live up to what they signed up to".
"One party is currently putting decommissioning above and before everything else in the agreement to the point of obsession. Another is putting it after and below everything else in the agreement to the point of indifference," he told the Labour Party conference in Blackpool.
