Unproductive talks between the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Fein broke up yesterday with an implicit acknowledgment that there can be no hope of progress until after the UUP annual conference this weekend.
There was also a growing consensus that the effective deadline for the Mitchell review will be the end of this month. The review facilitator, Senator George Mitchell, has not set a deadline, but the view of some politicians and observers was that if a deal cannot be struck by the end of this month, there will be none.
The UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, and the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, allowed two hours for their engagement at Castle Buildings, Stormont but the sides met for only 45 minutes. Mr Trimble left without speaking to the press, while Mr Adams said there had been "no progress".
He later qualified this by stating: "I suppose there was progress of sorts, if it can be measured that way, in that we agreed to meet again, and we certainly go forward in hope that out of those engagements there will be some progress made."
Mr Adams acknowledged that the intensive stage of the review could not start until after the UUP conference in Enniskillen on Saturday. The next encounter between the two sides would "probably" be after the conference, he said.
A spokesman for Mr Trimble accused Sinn Fein of being "evasive" on IRA disarmament. "We want to do a deal, but we can't do business if only one side is willing to give anything," he said.
Saturday's conference will attempt to ensure that Mr Trimble does not deviate from his position of "no guns no government". Delegates are due to debate a motion from the UUP Assembly team insisting that Sinn Fein cannot take its two seats in the executive until IRA decommissioning begins. Instead it calls on the SDLP to enter into government with unionists on the basis of Sinn Fein's exclusion from ministerial office.
In a departure from normal conference scheduling, three media commentators, Ms Ruth Dudley Edwards, Mr Eoghan Harris and Mr Eamon Mallie, are expected to address delegates on media perceptions of unionism.
Mr Adams said yesterday that the institutions of the agreement must be speedily implemented. "All aspects of the agreement need to be implemented, and that of course also means the issue of decommissioning, but the first thing that needs to be done is that the institutions need to be put in place," he added.
Asked why the meeting was so short, he replied: "Because I made it clear that I was not prepared, and we were not prepared, to waste each other's time or to go through the motions."
Mr Seamus Mallon, the SDLP deputy leader who also met Sinn Fein at Stormont yesterday, said it should be clear within the next two weeks whether the impasse over the formation of an executive and IRA decommissioning could be resolved.
He feared that the review would not be sustainable beyond the end of October. "If there is another postponement of any kind for any reason that is not valid, then I am not sure that the body politic will be able to survive that."
A senior UUP Assembly member also predicted that the deadline would be the end of this month, but that the talks might roll into mid-November.
Mr Mallon said that while little progress could be made before the UUP conference, the review should intensify thereafter. He detected a positive "change of tone" from the UUP and Sinn Fein.
He also believed that more politicians within the UUP now understood that implementing the Belfast Agreement was the best way forward for unionism.
"I think it is very clear within the Ulster Unionist Party that there are many who are recognising that their refusal to operate the agreement so far has not been to their advantage, and that's a good thing."
Last night Mr John Taylor, the UUP's deputy parliamentary leader at Westminster, denied that the Assembly party is intent on publicly rebuking him by appointing its own deputy leader at Stormont. The idea for a UUP deputy assembly leader came from him, he told The Irish Times.
