The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, has expressed hope that his first meeting with the Northern Secretary today will be marked as a significant step towards a lasting peace.
Mr Adams, speaking in west Belfast yesterday ahead of this morning's first face-to-face encounter with Dr Mo Mowlam, said he believed that the Ulster Unionist Party would attend the substantive talks beginning on September 15th, but even if it was absent, the talks should proceed.
Mr Adams said he would be telling Dr Mowlam that the British government clearly had a responsibility for the conflict in Northern Ireland, and was not merely a "referee, facilitator or moderator" between two disputing sides. The British still had a political and strategic interest in Northern Ireland, he said.
Today's meeting would be a start of a process where Britain faced up to its responsibility in the conflict and where it would begin to tackle the root causes of that conflict, he added.
Mr Adams said there was logic in Ireland being unified. "We want to see the British government joining with the Irish Government in developing a strategy which brings that about, which proceeds in that type of constitutional direction," he added.
"We also want - and we don't see this as a matter of negotiation - to see an equality agenda put in place, and steady progress made on it with some urgency. We want to see a demilitarisation of the situation here in this part of our country."
He hoped all unionists eventually would join in the talks. "Let Dr Paisley and David Trimble come and give their views. We will listen. We want to learn. We want them to listen and learn also."
He did not accept that Sinn Fein was on "probation" in relation to the talks. "I don't accept any decontamination period. I don't accept tests being passed by our party. We represent citizens throughout this island, but especially in this part of the island, and that is our mandate."
Meanwhile, senior Presbyterian members have told Dr Mowlam that the talks must be given every chance to succeed and that all elected parties, including Sinn Fein, should be involved in inclusive negotiations.
The Presbyterian Moderator, Dr Sam Hutchinson, yesterday led a group of 20 ministers and lay people from all over Ireland in hour-long talks with Dr Mowlam at Stormont yesterday during which they discussed the talks process, decommissioning and the need for mutual confidence-building measures.
Dr Mowlam's attention was "especially drawn" to a resolution of the Presbyterian General Assembly in June which called on the British and Irish governments "and all elected parties to enter into urgent and serious talks with one another with a view to reaching a mutually acceptable accommodation".
If the IRA ceasefire was established as unequivocal and credible, then Sinn Fein should be in volved in talks. Dr Hutchinson told Dr Mowlam he believed it was possible a generally acceptable agreement could be achieved.
