Trimble wins crucial party vote

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Northern Ireland's Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble has routed party rebels attempting to tie him to a deadline for achieving IRA disarmament.

The Stormont First Minister won more than 56 percent of a vote at a crucial ruling council meeting called on Saturday by his anti-Good Friday Agreement critics within the party.

Delegates voted 409 to 320 to back the leader's strategy aimed at securing the removal of all paramilitary weapons without imposing deadlines.

Trimble, whose recent re-election as First Minister was overshadowed by dissent within his own ranks, also defeated a motion calling for the reversal of key changes to Northern Ireland's police force.

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If successful, the challenge would have dented Trimble's authority within a party riven by bickering over trade-offs contained within 1998's landmark Good Friday peace agreement, aimed at ending 30 years of sectarian violence.

Trimble said afterwards: "We have taken another step along the road but there's still more to be done."

Hardliners had wanted the party to review its position in Northern Ireland's power-sharing government between Protestants and Roman Catholics when the ruling council meets again on March 9 unless the IRA failed to carry out further disarmament.

But Trimble warned the government and nationalist parties not to ignore the very real concerns of unionists over the working of the Good Friday Agreement.

He added: "We will continue to be there striving to see what we consider to be the objectives of the agreement are realised properly, that we are being supported by the greater number of the party in so doing, but there are still very real concerns there.

"There is a clear need on the part of Government and other parties to realise that there is substance in those concerns."

During the debate at Belfast's Waterfront Hall, delegates rejected an amendment from South Antrim MP David Burnside demanding the party review its position in the power sharing Executive on March 9 if the IRA fails to disarm.

Burnside had also called for the party to withdraw from cross-border institutions on February 28 if the Northern Ireland police service did not retain the royal title, flag and symbols.

Despite being defeated, Burnside insisted the vote had shown "very strong reservations" within the unionist community.

He told the Press Association: "We will be asking the Ulster Unionist Council at its AGM what advances we have made on British symbols.

"Will there be only one token gesture on decommissioning which we are not quite clear about?"

A Northern Ireland Office spokeswoman in London told PA: "The vote is a matter for the UUP but on many occasions the Secretary of State has made clear his respect for David Trimble's central role in the peace process."