THE Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, has come under sustained attack from other unionist parties for his proposal to "pigeonhole" the decommissioning issue in the Stormont talks.
Speaking before yesterday's plenary session, the Rev Ian Paisley said it was "the most serious surrender statement" that any UUP leader had ever made. It was "the pulling-down of the flag, and the surrender of our province
Giving what he described as a "Biblical definition" of the terminology used by Mr Trimble, Dr Paisley said: "Pigeonholes are the cage for every unclean and deceitful bird when you're selling a country out to the enemy."
However, the UUP security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, poured scorn on Dr Paisley's comments: "We must be reaching almost the epitome of evil acts against the Union, every act that has ever occurred has been worse than the one before."
He hit back at Dr Paisley over the DUP leader's criticism of police conduct during church protests in Harryville. "That is a betrayal of everything that unionism stands for and, worse, it's a betrayal of Protestantism and our belief in civil and religious liberty for all," Mr Maginnis said.
The leader of the UK Unionist Party, Mr Robert McCartney, said the UUP had made a "complete somersault" on decommissioning. It was "another example of Ulster Unionist policy being made on the hoof", he said.
"If you proceed into substantive negotiations on Strands 1, 2 and 3 with representatives of the loyalist paramilitaries who have not decommissioned then you are creating a blueprint that would enable Sinn Fein to enter immediately into substantive negotiations the moment they declared any form of ceasefire that was acceptable to a British government," Mr McCartney said.
The Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, said the British and Irish governments were trying to reach an accommodation on this "very difficult issue" which could be brought back to a plenary session.
Mr Mark Durkan, of the SDLP, was lukewarm about Mr Trimble's proposal: "It's not a very convincing idea to date and we re not sure that it would really help a sense of momentum in the talks to get into a situation where we leave quicksand behind us purely to have quicksand ahead of us."
The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, produced a photocopy of an article by the UUP leader from the Belfast Telegraph last June with a headline stating that Mr Trimble would bring the talks to a halt if decommissioning did not take place.