Unionists from the pro- and anti-Belfast Agreement camps have warned against any attempt to shift the focus on IRA decommissioning after senior figures from the Irish Government and the SDLP suggested the arms question must be reframed to end the political stalemate.
The Fianna Fail Ardfheis statement by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, that "all armies must be stood down" and the remark by Minister of State Ms Liz O'Donnell that next May should no longer serve as a deadline for decommissioning has angered unionists.
While Mr Ahern later qualified his comments by saying he was not equating the British army with the IRA, he also warned that IRA disarmament might never happen if the political institutions were not first reinstated.
The weekend comments from Mr Ahern and the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms O'Donnell, allied to remarks from the SDLP deputy leader, Mr Seamus Mallon, indicated the beginnings of a new pro-agreement nationalist strategy designed to break the decommissioning deadlock.
Mr Mallon said an effort should be made to "move the issue of decommissioning sideways from the political process", otherwise it would continue "to strangle the political process".
He was not calling for a redrafting of the agreement, but said the issue of arms should be approached in a different manner.
There would be no "quick fix" solution to the crisis.
"Is it possible that decommissioning is ever going to be done in response to a unionist demand or indeed in response to a British demand?" he asked. Mr Mallon also opposed the proposal from some unionists that the SDLP should join an executive with the unionist parties, with Sinn Fein excluded in the absence of IRA disarmament. It would not work and would mean decommissioning would never be achieved, he told the BBC yesterday.
The comments from the Government and the SDLP indicate a desire to see the UUP softening its stance on arms, but there appears little prospect of that happening in the current depressed political climate.
The UUP and the SDLP are today due to hold their first bilateral meeting since the institutions were suspended three weeks ago. It is unlikely the comments from the Taoiseach, Ms O'Donnell and Mr Mallon will win favour with the UUP.
The UUP security spokesman and pro-agreement MP, Mr Ken Maginnis, responded to the weekend statements. "I would be disappointed if this was to mean that the Irish Government was abandoning the agreement," he said.
His party's position was that Mr David Trimble "jumped first" by entering an executive with Sinn Fein and the situation remained that the IRA should reciprocate with movement on arms. "It would be utterly ridiculous if we were to have the Irish Government coming back to us and saying, `we can't handle this situation, what are you going to do to help us?' " he added.
Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, an anti-agreement UUP MP, said the Government "should think again" if it believed the May 22nd date suggested for decommissioning in the agreement should be unilaterally extended.
"That deadline is an integral part of the Belfast Agreement, and if the Irish Government is prepared to change such a fundamental part of the terms of the agreement, then that would have serious repercussions for the unionist community.
"We were told that the agreement was not a menu from which we could pick and choose, and if republicans are now going to be permitted to further delay on decommissioning, then everything else must be on the table for renegotiation, including police ref orms and the Patten report," he added.
The DUP Assembly member, Mr Ian Paisley jnr, accused the Government of "trying to rewrite the bits of the Good Friday agreement that don't work". Mr Ahern appeared to be equating the "forces of law and order, including the Garda Siochana, with the forces of terror".
Mr Paisley said he was amazed that Ms O'Donnell, in an interview in yesterday's Sunday Times, should say the suggested May deadline for decommissioning was not binding.
"I find it absolutely incredible that a junior minister should make a statement which effectively states that decommissioning is not important. It indicates an ambivalence to terrorist weapons," he added.
