Sinn Fein could not participate in government while the threat of IRA violence remained, a senior Ulster Unionist said in Belfast last night. Republicans had a responsibility to show their commitment to peace and democracy.
Mr Dermot Nesbitt, UUP front bench spokesman on economic policy and an Assembly member for South Down, was giving the first in a series of public lectures by politicians under the heading "Towards the New Millennium".
"Sinn Fein, as the political representative of the republican movement, has a conditional right to be in the government of Northern Ireland along with other political parties," Mr Nesbitt said.
But he added: "There is no place in a functioning democracy for equivocation on violence or the threat of violence."
Mr Nesbitt made no specific reference to decommissioning but he said: "It goes beyond accepted international norms for a political section of any movement to participate in the government of a region when its paramilitary section has done no more than declare a ceasefire; the threat of a return to violence by the IRA is at present undiminished.
"Mr Trimble, in his opening address to the new Northern Ireland Assembly on July 1st 1998, said that no one need be a prisoner of their past. I earnestly wish Sinn Fein to fully embrace the democratic process. As Mr Blair has said there can be no fudge between democracy and terrorism," Mr Nesbitt said in a speech prepared for delivery at St Mary's University College.
A senior SDLP figure has called for a "clear signal" from parties with paramilitary connections that they were working "constructively and in good faith" on decommissioning, as laid down in the Belfast agreement.
Mr Sean Farren, an SDLP Assembly member for North Antrim, said such a signal would "allay fears" in both communities that this key aspect of the agreement might not be implemented.
The parties to the agreement had made solemn commitments to find a solution to the decommissioning issue and to do all in their power to bring it about.
Dr Mowlam has insisted that, despite the upsurge in violence, the IRA ceasefire is holding. "If you read the Good Friday agreement, look at the criteria by which I make my judgment, and the evidence I receive - my view is that the ceasefire is not breaking down."
She would maintain that position until given evidence to the contrary: "When I do, I have made it clear I will act."
Mr Gerry Kelly, a Sinn Fein Assembly member, has accused the Conservative Party in Britain of "ganging up with anti-agreement unionists to wreck the peace process".
He added: "The imperative now is for all those who support the Good Friday agreement to stand together and oppose those who seek to wreck it or halt its implementation."
Mr William Ross MP, an Ulster Unionist, said prisoner releases under the pact should be slowed down or suspended in light of the "continuing upsurge" in paramilitary beatings and shootings.
Mr Ross said it was becoming increasingly clear to politicians at Westminster that enough was enough, including "many liberal-minded MPs who believe that the time for sanction against paramilitary organisations involved in these attacks has long since come".