Nationalists were "extremely worried" he said, that the
    situation could slip back to all-out conflict.
 
    "But more than ever before, they see nationalist
    parties, the Irish government ... and the British
    government and others as having a huge responsibility
    for averting this by building ... an effective peace
    process."
 
    Mr Adams said that policing and the courts must come
    within the remit of the proposed north-south bodies. He
    also wanted nationalists in the north to be able to
    elect their own representatives to the Irish
    parliament.  The constitutional imperative to
    reunification should remain, he said, and there must be
    powerful cross-border bodies as part of any peace
    settlement.
 
    He also emphasised that the demilitarisation of the
    North required the disbandment of the RUC, the withdrawal
    of the British Army and releases of political prisoners.
 
    But Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble dismissed the
    article and said Sinn Fein wasn't "a serious player" in
    talks.
 
    He said on British television: "They have nothing to
    contribute. They have shown that quite clearly.
 
    "Adams just simply isn't a serious player. My problem
    relates to the Irish government and Irish nationalists
    who are being unrealistic," Mr Trimble said.
 
    "I don't think they (Sinn Fein) are seriously engaged
    in these talks. They are certainly not trying to
    achieve agreement."
 
    Trimble also warned against allowing Sinn Fein into the
    talks tomorrow following their expulsion last month. He
    attacked Britain's governor in Ireland Mo Mowlam for
    being soft on "terrorism".
 
    But Adams later rejected Trimble's comments while 
    speaking in west Belfast. At a commemoration at Milltown 
    Cemetary for three IRA Volunteers murdered by the SAS 
    in Gibraltar in 1988, he said the days of unionists
    dismissing nationalist views were "over".
 
    "If he says that Sinn Fein isn't a player, does that
    mean that all those people who vote for us, and that
    wider broader nationalist opinion which doesn't vote
    for us but which has a view of the future, that we're
    not players?
 
    "Mr Trimble has to know that those days are over.  And
    the days of unionist just dismissing with one hand the
    democratic and nationalist view, those days have long
    since passed."
 
    We cannot have peace if no effort is beng made to
    remove the causes of conflict, he said.
 
    "Today, on the tenth anniversary of Gibraltar, we don't
    have peace. I think that should strike a cord with
    those who genuinely want to bring about a democratic
    and lasting peace settlement. Because you can't have it
    while Ireland is partitioned,  you can't have it while
    there are hundreds of prisoners, and you can't have it
    while Britain maintains a hold over this part of the
    island."