THE Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, yesterday made it clear that, before negotiations with Sinn Fein in any peace convention in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein would have to meet standards satisfactory to the UUP.
He said the extent to which Sinn Fein would be involved in negotiations "depends on the extent to which they are involved in violence".
If there was a new IRA cease fire, "it would help if they started off by saying yes, we intend this ceasefire to be permanent" he told a breakfast organised by the British embassy in Washington.
It would help if they said "Yes, we will take the principles stated in George Mitchell's report and we will accept those . . . We will be committed to those and honour them before, during and after talks", he said.
"If they started to say all those things, and then started to act in accordance with those statements, then they'll be going a long way to meeting those standards.
"If we get what we had before hand, a series of equivocations and evasions that's all Sinn Fein did for 18 months if we" get that again, then the likelihood is we're going to say that standard hasn't been met."
However, Mr Trimble argued that Sinn Fein would be able to enter negotiations in the convention he envisages if they took their seats. There would be "decommissioning running alongside the operation of a convention in which there will be substantive negotiations", he said. He envisaged "substantial negotiation" without prior decommissioning.
The dialogue would begin immediately after the elections he continued. "It will cover a range of activities, including substantive talks."
Mr Trimble accused "elements" of the Irish Government of trying to prevent elections in Northern Ireland, which he said could take place by May. They seem to be clutching at any sort of argument, no matter how disreputable, in order to prevent the democratic process developing in Northern Ireland", he said.
Speaking at the end of a visit to the US capital, accompanied by Mr Ken Maginnis and Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, the UUP leader dismissed Mr John Hume's proposal on Monday for a referendum on all party talks as "a complete diversion" and an "irrelevancy".
Nor did he see any function or purpose of questions on the ballot paper for elections to a convention.
Mr Trimble frequently criticised the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, during his two days in Washington, during which he met President Clinton.
Asked about Mr Spring's suggestion of a Dayton type conference which would include Sinn Fein, he said that the decision to exclude non government representatives from the US brokered Dayton talks had been backed by EU foreign ministers, including Mr Spring, so he was taking a contradictory position. "But then, this is not unusual for Mr Spring", he said.
Mr Trimble said Mr Spring had made "a very positive contribution at the outset of this process". But, over the last six to 12 months, "he seems to have lost his way. I have to say his contributions have not been particularly helpful. I'm being diplomatic."
He accused the Government of not preparing legislation for eventual decommissioning. "We could have serious difficulties if the Irish Government does not face up to its responsibilities on that matter", he said.
"When they go round picking motes out of other people's eyes, they should tackle the dirty great big beam in their own eye in their failure to address these issues, because I wouldn't put it past some elements in the Irish Government to try and sabotage things.
"I have very, very serious reservations about the approach that some elements within the Irish Government are adopting", he went on, responding to Dublin criticisms that elections would harden positions.
"If people want to adopt a hard line position, they'll do that, whether you have an election or you don't." He added "You will find we are not locking ourselves into hard line positions on most issues."
The argument adopted by the Irish Government was "inappropriate and inaccurate, and I suspect that behind the Irish attitude is an unwillingness to let the people of Northern Ireland have a say", he alleged.
Asked about divisions in the republican movement, he described it as "a conspiratorial Leninist organisation". Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness possibly were not told about the time and place the IRA bomb would go off, he said.
But, while Adams and" McGuinness are no longer part of the army council, their friends are in the army council, including the person put in to replace McGuinness, who is a close associate of Adams and McGuinness and is there to represent them in the army council."
He added that there was no reason to suppose that there was "many division among them".