John Taylor: suspicious

Ishbel Matheson reports on the mood in the Unionist community for BBC Radio's The World This Weekend Dur: 5'07"

Unionists Call Ceasefire a "Fraud"

Their suspicions have been deepened by newspaper reports that the ceasefire may last only four months.

The Ulster Unionist Party's deputy leader, John Taylor, said he could not take part in any talks with Sinn Fein "with a gun to my head".

In the clearest indication yet that the UUP may refuse to take part in negotiations without parallel decommissioning, Mr Taylor told the BBC's The World This Weekend that he would not talk to any party which brought a gun to the discussion table.

"But of course that does not mean we cannot take part in talks with other constitutional parties, including our own Government in London," he added.

Mr Taylor said the present ceasefire was simply a restoration of the last one which had itself been a "fraud". He was anxious that people were not deceived by what Sinn Fein and the IRA had decided to do.

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, will meet the Ulster Unionist Party leader, David Trimble, on Monday to try to persuade him to support the Government on Wednesday, when the House of Commons will vote on the Anglo-Irish disarmament agreement. Unionists have criticised the disarmament proposals as being too vague.

Democratic Unionists Denounce "Phoney" Peace

Other Unionist parties have been even more critical of the ceasefire. The deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Peter Robinson, dismissed the IRA statement as "a restoration of a phoney ceasefire that is totally unsatisfactory".

Peter Robinson: not satisfied

"A change of government does not change the nature of an IRA ceasefire" Dur: 27"

He said the 1994 ceasefire had been "used by the IRA to equip and prepare bombs in London. Both bombing and killing continued." Mr Robinson doubted the sincerity of the new IRA ceasefire.

Unionists, he said, would not accept the ceasefire announcement as a basis for Sinn Fein's entry into political talks. Sinn Fein might be there but Unionists would not be. "There is no way any Unionist is going to accept this," he explained. "Without Unionists you can't have talks, and under the rules that is the end of the process."

David Ervine: "practical politics"

David Ervine of the Progressive Unionists, a party close to some of the loyalist paramilitaries, welcomed the IRA's move but stressed that his party could enter negotiations with Sinn Fein only if the rest of the unionist movement was represented, too.

"We couldn't sit alone with all of nationalism," he said. "That would have nothing to do with personalities, with hate or like, it would have to do with the practical politics of it. What we require are the greater number in each tradition to pass copper-fastened agreements that hopefully we can put in the bank and build for the future."

SDLP Asks Unionists to Judge IRA By Its Actions

John Hume, leader of the main nationalist party the SDLP, says the main priority is to stop the violence. He urged Unionists to accept the truce.

John Hume

Urges Unionists to work for peace on the BBC's Breakfast With Frost Dur: 2'05"

"Decommissioning is one of the biggest red herrings we have ever had. Where in the world where you have a conflict does a solution begin with decommissioning?" he asked on the BBC's Breakfast With Frost programme.

"Let's begin spilling our sweat and not our blood," he said.

Northern Ireland's tourist chiefs and businessmen will be thrilled. The last ceasefire heralded a new age of investment and tourism. They tailed off after the breaking of the ceasefire, and this year people involved in the tourist industry, especially those who invested heavily in hotels and other facilities in the expectation of peace, have had a rough time.