The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Crunch talks due over NI arrangement
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is set to have a crunch meeting with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss next week over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
It comes as several months of talks between the UK Government and EU over the post-Brexit arrangements have failed to reach a conclusion.
Unionists are strongly opposed to a slew of checks at Northern Ireland’s ports while the region effectively remains within the EU single market, to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.
Sir Jeffrey has threatened to withdraw his party’s ministers from the Stormont Executive if the UK Government does not act.
Last year, the government said the conditions to trigger Article 16 of the protocol, a move that would effectively unilaterally suspend the treaty agreed between the UK and the EU, had been met.
Sir Jeffrey said yesterday at Stormont he has given “time and space” for negotiations but warned the situation “cannot go on indefinitely”.
He said: “We’re now six months on from the UK Government’s command paper where they said six months ago that conditions had been met to trigger Article 16,
“And six months later, nothing has happened. That is not a sustainable position and if the UK Government isn’t prepared to act, I am.”
Sir Jeffrey said he is meeting Ms Truss early next week, describing it as “very important for me”.
He said it will “help to determine the direction in which the government is travelling”.
Sir Jeffrey added: “Is there, as Liz Truss says, still a commitment to trigger Article 16 if agreement can’t be reached with the EU?
“That’s what she is saying publicly and I want to test that. I want to explore with her what that means and particularly, what is the time scale for triggering Article 16 if these talks, as it appears at the moment, are not going to be successful?”
Meanwhile, Ms Truss issued a fresh call to Russia to end its “malign activity” towards Ukraine as Nato warned Moscow it would pay a “heavy price” if it attacked its neighbour.
The alliance’s general secretary Jens Stoltenberg said the “risk of conflict is real” if Russia does not deescalate and end its aggressive actions.
Nato foreign ministers held virtual talks yesterday to discuss the Russian military build-up, with tens of thousands of troops massing near the border with Ukraine.
US and Russian officials are due to sit down for talks in Geneva in an attempt to defuse the crisis before it escalates into a full-blown military conflict.
It will be followed on Wednesday by the first meeting in two years of the Nato-Russia council to be held in Brussels.