THE Northern Minister for Political Development, Mr Michael Ancram, defended Mr Major's endorsement of an elected body as "this one route which does appear to offer the chance of getting those all party talks started
In a BBC Radio Ulster interview from Westminster, Mr Ancram said that the Mitchell report was very valuable in terms of the confidence it could create in the process as a whole, "but it did not produce a way of getting the process started that is, getting all parties round the table".
"We know that we could get all parties round the table if there was decommissioning in advance, or the beginning of decommissioning in advance, because all parties have made that clear.
"In the absence of that, we have to look to see whether there are other ways of getting all parties to the table. And it does appear to us at this moment that the elective process, which is referred to in the Mitchell report and which a number of parties have raised with us over the last weeks, does offer a way of doing so.
"And what we have said is that we want to explore that now. We want to find an acceptable way of doing it, and if we do we would we be prepared to legislate urgently."
Regarding Sinn Fein and SDLP resistance to this concept, he said that they should consider whether they wanted all party talks. "They say that they do, and the practical reality is that you cannot have all party talks unless you can get all parties to come to them.
The details of an election, Mr Ancram said, were very much for discussion within the political track in order to find a way forward which was acceptable. The aim was to elect a body whose role would be restricted to undertaking negotiations within the three stranded approach.