Adams warns against decommissioning deadlines

The Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams has warned that decommissioning deadlines will not help the peace process. He was speaking after a 45-minute meeting with President Clinton and his top foreign policy advisers - US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright and National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger - at the White House. A White House spokesman said all aspects of the implementation of the Good Friday agreement had been discussed during the meeting, including decommissioning.

Speaking after the meeting, Gerry Adams said he and the President had tried to take a strategic view of what needs to be done to bring about the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement. He said that, while there was plenty of distance to cover, he saw no reason why the progress already made cannot continue. He warned that deadlines have never worked in any peace process. Mr Adams left Washington for New York where he joins the North's Education Minister, Martin McGuinness and Dáil Deputy Caoimhghin O'Caolain.

The meeting between Gerry Adams and Bill Clinton followed a warning earlier today from the Taoiseach and the Northern Secretary that there had to be decommissioning for the peace process to succeed. Today, the Northern Secretary, Peter Mandelson, told the House of Commons that he expects the first steps towards the scrapping of paramilitary arms to start soon. Mr Mandelson spoke of arms being made permanently inaccessible by the paramilitaries if decommissioning is to succeed. He told MPs his government was entitled to expect that the disposal of weapons would now begin. Peter Mandelson also said he would be announcing his own decision on the Patten recommendations on reform of the RUC within weeks.

The Taoiseach has warned that the entire peace process will fall apart if there is no decommissioning of paramilitary arms. Speaking in Johannesburg, Mr Ahern said he was, however, confident that decommissioning would happen. He said now that there was a power sharing executive in Northern Ireland the old arguments about surrender were not relevant. Mr Ahern was answering questions at the South African Institute for International Affairs at the end of a wide-ranging address on the northern peace process.

In a separate development earlier today, RUC officers handed in a 400,000-signature petition at Downing Street calling for the force to retain its name and badge. In a letter with the petition, the Northern Police Federation chairman, Sergeant Les Rodgers, claimed that the Patten Report dishonoured the "sacrifice and courage of the RUC" and threatened the emasculation of the force. Last year the Patten Report on reform of policing recommended changing the force's symbols. The majority of the signatures on the petition have been collected from people in Northern Ireland and the delegation says that the sheer number of signatures is an indication of the strength of feeling on the issue.