BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- In the latest sign of a possible breakthrough in Northern Ireland's peace talks, the province's main Protestant party Tuesday softened its position on IRA disarmament, prompting a conciliatory response from its political ally.
Until now, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble has said that the outlawed Irish Republican Army must promise to disarm before he would accept the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party as government colleagues.But Tuesday, he made a significant departure from that line. He said that if the IRA provides "a genuine and meaningful response" to Northern Ireland's disarmament commission, "the way will then be clear for the establishment of the political institutions envisaged" in the Good Friday peace accord of 1998.
Sinn Fein responded with its own conciliatory statement, calling disarmament "an essential part of the peace process" and pledging to help remove "the gun forever from the politics of our country" in the coming weeks.
"There is no doubt that we are entering into the final stages of the resolution of the conflict," the Sinn Fein statement said.
Trimble, who jointly won last year's Nobel Peace Prize alongside moderate Catholic politician John Hume, stressed that he wanted British Protestants and Irish Catholics to respect each other and govern the territory together.
"Both of our traditions have suffered as a result of our conflict and division. This is a matter of deep regret and makes it all the more important that we now put the past behind us," Trimble said.
Trimble's statement was written well in advance as part of a chain of interlocking gestures designed by American mediator George Mitchell to break the past year's deadlock in making the Good Friday peace accord work.
The peace accord calls for a new four-party administration composed equally of local British Protestant and Irish Catholic politicians to govern Northern Ireland.
But the Ulster Unionists have refused for the past year to establish the administration. Trimble's insistence that the IRA first promise to disarm has been the central sticking point.
As part of the accord, Canadian, American and Finnish officials on the disarmament commission are supposed to oversee gradual disarmament of the IRA and the province's outlawed pro-British groups by May 2000.
The IRA is expected to issue a policy statement within days confirming its appointment of a senior representative to the commission -- which in Trimble's new terms of reference would apparently qualify as a "genuine and meaningful response."
But Trimble faces an uphill struggle to win backing from his party to change its policy of "no guns, no government." For the past year, the Ulster Unionists have demanded a firm IRA disarmament commitment in advance of Sinn Fein's entry into government.
Trimble's many critics within his party have already dismissed the IRA's expected decision to appoint a disarmament representative as insignificant since the IRA could simply talk forever without delivering anything.
The IRA called a cease-fire in 1997 after killing 1,800 people in hopes of abolishing the Protestant-majority state in Northern Ireland. But it maintains a network of hidden arms dumps in the neighboring Irish Republic.
It has previously insisted it will never disarm, and refused to appoint a representative to the disarmament commission.