The British government is prepared to introduce major changes to policing legislation in Northern Ireland once the general election is out of the way, it was claimed today.
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Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness: We will not under any circumstances accept anything less than a complete new beginning to policing
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Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness said that having been involved in the negotiations with the British government over the last few months he was confident that amendments would be made to the Police Act.
"We will not under any circumstances accept anything less than a complete new beginning to policing," he said.
"Our people want to be policed and we are absolutely determined that they will get their new beginning to policing they were promised on Good Friday."
All-party negotiations are expected to take place immediately after the election, with the most likely start date being June 18th.
A British government spokesman said no date had been fixed but it was expected that talks would get under way as soon as possible.
The areas of concern to be thrashed out are the IRA decommissioning, policing, demilitarisation and the ban on Sinn Féin ministers attending north-south ministerial meetings.
Mr McGuinness said his party would not tolerate renegotiation of the Belfast Agreement and he did not believe that First Minister Mr Trimble would carry out his threat to resign on July 1st in the absence of IRA disarmament.
He added that republicans would be flexible during the talks but said that decommissioning would not happen as a result of unionist pressure.
"What needs to happen is that the unionist political leadership need to understand that the way they have handled the arms issue has been a very serious mistake.
"They have attempted to unilaterally decide how this issue is going to be dealt with. It is absolutely vital that any negotiations that take place after the election deals with this issue on the basis of the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement," he added.
Mr McGuinness said it was critical that Sinn Féin returned to the negotiation table with a strengthened mandate adding that his party would not settle for anything less than equality and justice.
"Only Sinn Fein in my view will stand up to the British government. Only Sinn F[ac]ein will challenge David Trimble's unlawful veto and the securocrat agenda."
PA