Ulster Unionists have accused the UK Government of caving in to violence following the Downing Street meeting between the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the Sinn Fein President, Gerry Adams.

Unionists are committed to keeping Northern Ireland under UK rule and fear that a settlement will give the Irish Government a say in how the province is run.

Gerry Adams arrives in Downing Street for the talks

Mr Blair will meet David Trimble, leader of Northern Ireland's biggest pro-British group, the Ulster Unionist party, at 1800GMT on Thursday to urge his party to keep working towards an Easter settlement.

Before the meeting, a leading negotiator from the party, Jeffrey Donaldson, protested that the UK was bowing to republican violence and warned that prospects for a talks agreement were fading.

Agreement 'slipping away'

He said Mr Blair was reviving ideas "which they know are totally unacceptable to unionists".

Mr Donaldson told BBC Radio: "We believe that the government's retreat to that position is a direct result of the violence and the threats of the IRA, and it is also about bringing the Sinn Fein boycott of the talks to an end."

He also accused Sinn Fein, the moderate nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, and the Irish Government of pressing for a powerful all-Ireland political institution over which any future Northern Ireland elected assembly would have little say.

"I have to say ... that the chances of agreement are slipping away because those in the nationalist community, such as Sinn Fein and the SDLP, are upping the ante," he said.

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