DUP reaction to religious witness proposal…

THERE seems to be a difference of emphasis on how different senior DUP politicians view the proposal to allow two church representatives to witness decommissioning. The Irish News reports that DUP leader Ian Paisley has described it as “completely unacceptable”, while the Guardian reports Gregory Campbell saying it represented progress, and he certainly didn’t appear to dismiss it.East Londonderry MP Gregory Campbell said: “If churchmen were present it would represent some progress towards what we wanted to see.”

But he insisted: “We need to have credible and viable decommissioning and there needs to be a visual aspect to it.”

Barry McCaffrey quotes Mr Paisley: “It would have to be done in such a way that it be made visible to everyone. How will they know that they are going to do it? Independent observers could really only speak for themselves.”

It seems the DUP is holding out for a Kodak moment, so these statements are not necessarily contradictory.

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