A strong "pro-agreement axis" is needed in the forthcoming review process to protect the Good Friday Agreement from those who would tear it apart, SDLP leader Mark Durkan said yesterday.
According to Mr Durkan, the DUP do not want to merely tweak the agreement, they want to destroy it. Mr Durkan yesterday had separate meetings with the pro-agreement Sinn Féin and Alliance parties.
He said the SDLP would not give in to the DUP's wish either to destroy the agreement or to gouge out key aspects of it.
Mr Durkan said: "The DUP have got the election result they wanted. Now they will use that result to try to justify their claim that the agreement is a bust.
"People need to be clear that the DUP will not do business with the pro-agreement parties to get the institutions up and running and to implement the agreement. They do not want to merely tweak the agreement; their goal is to destroy it.
"The DUP are not pro-agreement unionists trapped in an anti-agreement party and they cannot simply ignore the overwhelming pro-agreement mandate cast by the electorate last week."
A Sinn Féin delegation including party president Gerry Adams, Conor Murphy and Caitriona Ruane said their meeting with the SDLP was part of an effort to have discussions with all the pro-agreement parties, and to develop and coordinate a pro-agreement project.
Mr Adams said: Some 70% of the electorate voted for the agreement and 70% of the MLAs are pro-agreement. There is therefore a pressing need for us to work out areas of cooperation between us to defend, develop and promote the agreement.
"This is especially true for Sinn Féin and the SDLP who represent a shared constituency. We need to explore the possibilities of cooperation above and beyond the agreement.
"There is also an onus on the pro-agreement parties to prepare for the review to ensure that the principles, structures and ethos of the agreement are protected and developed."
The pro-agreement theme was also taken up by Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday.
He said that about 70% of people still support Northern Ireland's pro-agreement parties.
And at a Downing Street news conference Mr Blair indicated that there was no sense that a political deadlock would lead to a security crisis.
Mr Blair said: "On the contrary, people are looking at how they can work things out in a peaceful and democratic way."
The Prime Minister said the majority of people wanted devolution restored. What had to be worked out was on what terms it could be restored.
Earlier yesterday a senior delegation from the Ulster Unionist Party including leader David Trimble, Sir Reg Empey, Dermot Nesbitt and David McClarty had discussions with Secretary of State Paul Murphy at Castle Buildings, Stormont.
The UUP impressed on Mr Murphy two primary objectives: "to get republicans to engage in acts of completion and consequently to see the restoration of the assembly as soon as possible.
"Taxpayers have been footing the bill for a suspended assembly for the past 14 months and cannot be expected to continue to do so indefinitely.
"We will continue to explore whether restoration can be achieved quickly," the UUP said.
Meanwhile, US President George W Bush's special adviser on Northern Ireland, Richard Haass arrives in Belfast today for a round of diplomatic discussions with the political parties.
This will be Dr Haass's last visit to the north as the President's adviser as he now heads the Council for Foreign Relations in New York.
His replacement as special envoy is likely to be announced in January.
Dr Haass will have back to back meetings with all the political parties including DUP today and tomorrow to examine the situation following the assembly election and the possibilities for any progress.
In a recent interview with the Irish News, Dr Haass said he hoped that after the assembly poll diplomacy or negotiations could start up and then it would be a case of all shoulders to the wheel.
He said that he has made more than a dozen trips to Northern Ireland in the last three years and has yet to come across any difference or problem that he would describe as intractable or insurmountable.
On this, his final visit as Mr Bush's adviser, Ambassador Haass is likely to emphasise the US administration's belief that, on a political and diplomatic level, work must be done to have the parties put together a basis by which the devolved institutions could be restored.
The aim is to bring about "the full normalisation of political life in Northern Ireland and to end paramilitary activity".
The shape a new executive would take...
SINN Féin and the SDLP would be entitled to the same number of seats in any new Stormont executive, if an assembly is formed.
Under the D'Hondt system the DUP, as the largest party in the Assembly, would be entitled to the first choice of the 10 ministerial portfolios within any new executive. As the second largest party the Ulster Unionists (UUP) would be entitled to choose from the remaining nine posts.
Sinn Féin as the third largest party would then choose from the remaining eight ministerial offices while the SDLP, as the fourth largest party in the assembly, would have the choice of the seven remaining posts. The choice would then revert to the DUP and follow along the same lines downwards.
With 10 ministerial offices in the executive, that would mean the DUP and UUP would be entitled to three seats each, while Sinn Féin and the SDLP would each have two ministers.
However, while Sinn Féin would not have increased its ministerial portfolios in the executive, it would be entitled to appoint one of its MLAs as Deputy First Minister, while as the largest party the DUP would have increased its ministries to three and would also fill the office of First Minister.
In the previous executive the UUP and SDLP had three ministries each and the offices of First Minister and Deputy First Minister, while Sinn Féin and the DUP had two seats respectively.
Under any new executive the SDLP would suffer the single largest loss with no Deputy First Minister and only two ministries.
