David Trimble,Ulster Unionist leader puts pressure on Dr Reid
Martin McGuinness has said that he was working flat out to get the IRA to give up weapons. However, the Sinn Féin MLA warned that suspension of the power-sharing executive at Stormont would mark the end of the Good Friday Agreement.
Mr McGuinness would not say if a move on arms could happen in time to prevent a suspension, which would accompany a Unionist walkout from the executive, due to begin on Wednesday.
He also said that the week ahead would see all sides facing a very serious situation and that it would be a mistake for Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble and his ministers to walk out.
Meanwhile, Mr Trimble has called for the Northern Secretary to declare that the IRA ceasefire is over next time the organisation carries out a murder. His request follows John Reid's announcement yesterday that the UDA, UFF and LVF ceasefires are no longer intact.
Mr Trimble said that he believed Dr Reid had few other options. He said: "There are things he can do now in terms of exerting significant pressure on those organisations, and I hope he is actually going to do it.
"And I would like to say to Dr Reid that next time the IRA murder someone, he will take exactly the same action, because over the course of the last year, the IRA have murdered four people, and nothing has been done about it.
"Dr Reid won't want to look as though he is being biased in his approach." The Ulster Unionist leader restated his threat that Unionist ministers would withdraw from the Stormont Assembly if there was no decommissioning of IRA arms this week.
Mr Trimble is set to travel to Washington to brief key figures about the latest crisis in the Northern peace process. He is expected to meet US President George Bush's special envoy to Northern Ireland, Richard Haas.
