'Progress' in NI negotiations

Interlocking issues: Talks on policing, demilitarisation and disarmament continue

The deputy leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party has said the government is moving to address nationalists' outstanding concerns on Northern Ireland police reform.

Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Seamus Mallon said there had been progress in his party's negotiations with the government on the policing issue this week.

However, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has said there has not been any real progress during his party's talks with the government.

The parties met with representatives of the British, Irish and US governments and had detailed discussions with Prime Minister Tony Blair at Hillsborough when he visited Northern Ireland on Wednesday and Thursday.

The talks were held to make an intensive effort to find a way to resolve the impasse over the interlocked issues of policing, demilitarisation, paramilitary disarmament and the stability of the powersharing institutions.

The contacts between all of the main players are expected to resume next week.

Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster on Sunday, Mr Mallon stressed it was too soon to say whether his party would agree to support the new police service.

Seamus Mallon: "Agreement needed to end series of NI crises"

He said there needed to be agreement on all of the issues threatening to destabilise the peace process, or it would just go on lurching from crisis to crisis.

"There has been some movement. I don't want to overstate it, but I think people are beginning to understand more clearly that what we want to do is to make sure we get this right," he said.

"We want to ensure that there are no sets of circumstances after it starts, where in effect there is a pullback and where the whole thing might collapse.

"That would be the worst thing possible for policing and it would be absolutely bad for the political process. No-one wants to see that."

The SDLP and Sinn Fein have, so far, refused to take part in the new policing structures of the new Police Service of Northern Ireland, which was due to start recruiting in April, because they do not think the reforms go far enough.

The SDLP is seeking public inquiries into the Royal Ulster Constabulary's handling of the Robert Hamill, Rosemary Nelson and Pat Finucane murder cases.

The party also wants more assurances on the accountability of the police, a neutral working environment, the closure of Gough barracks, and the merger of Special Branch with CID.

'No progress'

Sinn Fein has been much more downbeat about the prospect of any agreement being hammered out in the talks.

Gerry Adams: "Obstacles have not been removed"

Speaking outside a meeting of his party's executive in Dublin on Saturday, the Sinn Fein president said the talks had not yielded any prospect of a deal.

Mr Adams told reporters that "the roadblocks, the obstacles have not been cleared out of the way".

He said Tony Blair had been very focused, but that the issues at the core of the problem were "British government issues".

Sinn Fein is calling on the British government to amend the Police NI Act.

It is also arguing that the government must deliver on promises, made at the Hillsborough talks in May last year, to fully implement the Patten report on policing and carry out demilitarisation, particularly in border areas.

Sanctions speculation

Mr Adams also said party members had told him of rumours that First Minister David Trimble was not going to nominate a Sinn Fein minister to attend Tuesday's meeting of the British-Irish Council in Dublin Castle.

Ulster Unionist leader is pushing for arms move

A spokesman for the Ulster Unionist party said the party was not aware of any basis for Mr Adams remarks.

However, it is understood Mr Trimble has not yet signed the nominations papers, which are waiting for signature on Monday.

The Ulster Unionist leader has already imposed sanctions on Sinn Fein's two ministers in the powersharing executive, by excluding them from meetings of the North-South Ministerial Council, because of the IRA's refusal to start decommissioning arms.

He has come under increasing pressure from his party to take further action against republicans.