Talks with Sinn Fein to continue

COLIN BROWN

Ministers yesterday refused to break off contacts with Sinn Fein leaders in spite of a call by the deputy leader of the Ulster Unionists to halt talks with the IRA and Sinn Fein because of the wave of killings of alleged drug dealers in Ulster.

Officials at the Northern Ireland Office said contacts with Sinn Fein were being maintained, and more meetings could be held.

John Taylor's call for meetings to be halted caused a split in the Ulster Unionists ranks after it was repudiated by Ken Maginnis, the party's security spokesman. Mr Maginnis said it would give the IRA an excuse for returning to violence.

The call was supported by Andrew Hunter, the pro-Unionist chairman of the backbench committee of Tory MPs on Northern Ireland. Mr Hunter said there should be a "pause" until the killings had stopped.

Direct Action Against Drugs (DAAD) claimed they killed the latest victim, Ian Lyons, 31, who was shot as he sat in a car with his girlfriend outside her home at Lurgan, Co Armagh.

He died later in hospital, the seventh man to be murdered since April when the shootings first started, and the fifth in the last month. Sinn Fein's senior representatives involved in talks with the British and Irish governments have been urged to disown the campaign of bloodshed in nationalist areas.

The party insists there is no proof of IRA involvement in the latest shooting.

The Government's refusal to heed the call underlines John Major's determination not to allow the peace process to be pushed off course by his possible reliance on the Unionists to remain in power for a full term.