Agreement review to take place next week

Secretary of State Paul Murphy has announced that the Review of the Good Friday Agreement will resume next week after tomorrow's European elections.

Both the British and Irish Governments will meet with Northern Ireland's political parties during the talks in Belfast on Tuesday and Wednesday.

However, Ulster Unionist Leader David Trimble has called on the Government to urgently disclose exactly what was discussed during yesterday’s ‘secret’ Stormont talks.

It is understood that Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell held separate meetings with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness and DUP MPs Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds at two different locations at Stormont on Tuesday.

During a point of order in the House of Commons this afternoon, the Upper Bann MP asked the Speaker of the House whether he had been approached by the Government for permission to make a statement to the House on the outcome of yesterday’s talks.

He said the Government must make public the purpose and outcome of the talks, so that Northern Ireland’s voting public is made fully aware of both the Republican movement’s and the DUP’s negotiating positions before they cast their votes tomorrow.

Mr Trimble went on to say that such a statement should explain how the Government had allowed themselves to be manipulated by Sinn Fein into meeting two days before the Euro election.

He told MPs that the Government had acquiesced in Sinn Fein’s aim: to steal the SDLP’s Euro seat.

(MB)