Ahern attacks Unionists' intransigence

THE NORTHERN Ireland peace process was in crisis yesterday after Tony Blair and the Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, admitted they were out of ideas for breaking the deadlock between the Ulster parties on how to give effect to the Good Friday Agreement.

The leaders held emergency talks on the sidelines of the Vienna EU summit but emerged exuding exasperation and despondency and with their hopes of a pre-Christmas breakthrough fading fast. "I can't do anything more," Mr Ahern said, making no attempt to conceal his frustration.

Casting doubt on the willingness of David Trimble's Ulster Unionists to engage in constructive negotiation, he said Dublin had done everything it could to accommodate their concerns. Yet, he said,there was no sign of any move on the Unionist side. "It is disappointing, frankly astonishing, that so little has been achieved. The reality is, even at this difficult time, 10 days have gone without even phone contact. That is quite ridiculous."

Echoing this frustration, Mr Blair said it should not be difficult to get the process "over the last few hurdles". It was time for the parties to abide by the agreement they signed.

There are growing fears that failure to pin down a deal by early next week could fan violence when hardline Unionists gather at Drumcree next weekend. Irish sources said Dublin is increasingly worried that there may be fundamental resistance within Mr Trimble's party to accepting the full power-sharing ramifications of the Good Friday Agreement.

Such is the alarm in government circles that Mr Blair broke off his summit discussions to telephone David Trimble, who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in Oslo on Thursday. Privately, officials are critical of Mr Trimble's apparent inability to break the resistance within his party.

The main stumbling block is a dispute on the size of the power-sharing executive, the departments it will include and the composition of the planned cross-border ministerial council. Without agreement on these elements, new British and Irish legislation cannot be put through both parliaments.

In his Nobel acceptance speech, Mr Trimble challenged Sinn Fein to move on IRA decommissioning. He said that despite pressure from Unionists, he had not demanded dates for the disposal of weapons but wanted a start made.

But Mr Ahern insisted yesterday that it was disingenuous to keep linking the technical completion of agreements onthe new democratic institutions to weapons. The new power-sharing executive will not, in any case, start operating until February, he said.