N. Ireland peace talks to resume

Trimble: We will get the Good Friday Agreement implemented

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Britain's Northern Ireland Minister has said he expects talks to resume to end a deadlock in the Good Friday Agreement.

John Reid said on Saturday: "I hope in the next few days to be discussing with the parties... how we take the peace process forward and get the implementation of all aspects of the Good Friday agreement."

Ulster Unionist Party chief David Trimble, the embattled leader of Northern Ireland's joint Catholic-Protestant government, barely held on to his seat in Thursday's British parliamentary elections -- indicating waning support for the peace process among pro-British Protestants.

Trimble was an architect of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord.

"In terms of the way forward and the difficult job we are engaged in, we will get it (the Good Friday Agreement) properly implemented," he told supporters.

"We are not quitters. We will stick with this job until it is done."

The Northern Irish peace process was put under fresh pressure on Friday after general election gains by Protestant hardliners renewed demands for IRA disarmament.

Rev. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, which will have five MPs in the new Westminster parliament, the highest in the party's history, has warned Prime Minister Tony Blair the Good Friday Agreement must go.

The IRA's political wing Sinn Fein also pulled off dramatic triumphs in West Tyrone and Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

With Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams winning in West Belfast and Martin McGuinness retaining his seat in Mid Ulster, the unprecedented republican success in the west of Northern Ireland shattered John Hume's moderate nationalist SDLP by overtaking the rival nationalist party for the first time.

Former UUP security spokesman Ken Maginnis said he was disappointed that Sinn Fein had narrowly won the seat of Fermanagh and South Tyrone -- which he held for 18 years before stepping down at this election.

Sinn Fein candidate Michelle Gildernew gained just 53 more votes than the pro-agreement UUP candidate James Cooper's 17,686.

Maginnis told CNN that following the election, the parties would be reviewing the agreement -- but not re-negotiating it.

He said people feared a return to violence because some parties were not implementing the agreement.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams retained his seat of West Belfast with a majority of almost 20,000 votes -- up from a majority of almost 8,000 in the 1997 election when he won his seat.

Northern Ireland has 18 seats in the national parliament in London.

Adams, a key figure in the Northern Irish process, refuses to swear loyalty to Queen Elizabeth or take his seat in the parliamentary chamber in protest against Britain's retention of sovereignty over Northern Ireland.

He said it was "a resounding vote" for the Good Friday peace accord, signed in 1998 after the Irish Republican Army (IRA) halted its anti-British war.

Adams said: "We have to make sure the Good Friday Agreement works."

He spoke to Blair on Friday and warned the policing and demilitarisation issues had to be sorted out when new negotiations get under way later this month.