Unionist demands unification vote

Trimble: A referendum would kill the united Ireland issue for a generation

BELFAST, N.Ireland -- Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble is calling for a referendum on a united Ireland.

Trimble, Northern Ireland's first minister, urged London and Dublin to carry out the poll next May on the same day as Northern Ireland Assembly elections in 2003.

He said he was confident the poll would result in Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom and force Republicans to end calls for separation.

He made the surprise move during a speech to the Ulster Unionist Council's annual general meeting in Belfast on Saturday.

Trimble told reporters: "It will kill off this issue for a generation. I am quite sure the result would be an overwhelming endorsement of the Union."

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He argued the current status in Northern Ireland gave "the right balance of Britishness and Irishness" to its people and was the best prospect socially, politically, and economically.

The proposal for a cross-border poll on uniting Ireland comes just days after senior colleague Sir Reg Empey urged Unionists to fight Sinn Fein's attempt to drive Northern Ireland into a United Ireland.

Trimble was also responding to recent claims by Republican leaders that a united Ireland was inevitable in the medium term given increases in the population of Northern Ireland's Roman Catholic minority.

"So let's call the Republicans' bluff," Trimble added.

Any referendum would be at the discretion of both Dublin and London governments.

Provisions for such a poll were included in 1998's landmark Good Friday peace agreement.

A Downing Street spokesman told the UK news agency, the Press Association, on Saturday: "There are no plans for a referendum at this stage, but if Mr Trimble has proposals no doubt he will want to talk to us about them."

Under the terms of the pact a subsequent poll could not be held until a further seven years had passed.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams told the recent World Economics Forum in New York that Republicans and Nationalists could not force Unionists into a united Ireland.

He called on Unionists to engage with in a debate on the type of united Ireland they could live in.

The call for a referendum was welcomed by the chairman of the nationalist SDLP Alex Attwood who said it was time another vote took place.

The West Belfast Assembly member added: "The reason why the SDLP

negotiated to have a provision for a border poll in the Northern Ireland Act

1998 was to have a regular assessment of support for a united Ireland.

"It has been decades since a popular assessment of the issue and it would be

timely to make that assessment now."

Sinn Fein's party national chairman Mitchel McLaughlin also claimed that a united Ireland was achievable for Nationalists and for Republicans within the next two decades.

The nationalist community is currently believed to make up about 45 percent of Northern Ireland's 1.5 million population, but Republicans say fresh census figures due later this year will show the gap narrowing, bolstering their hopes for a

majority in favour of a united Ireland.

Trimble said he believed 20 to 25 percent of Catholics would favour retaining the union and said he was confident about holding a poll.