Mark: Opposition to reply to PM soon on crime talks

Senator Wade Mark expects Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar to reply soon to the Prime Minister's written invitation for joint crime talks between the Government and Opposition, he told a briefing at the Opposition Leader's office in Port of Spain on Wednesday.

At the recent ceremonial opening of Parliament, President Christine Kangaloo urged the two sides to work across the parliamentary aisle to curb the crime scourge.

Dr Rowley soon after told reporters he would write to the Opposition to invite it to talks, with each side presenting a four-person team to discuss an agreed agenda.

Princes Town MP Barry Padarath later said the UNC team would include NTA head Gary Griffith, who in turn told Newsday he would participate and not bear any grudge against Rowley, who earlier opposed his reinstatement as commissioner of police

Mark said, "All I can tell you is, just put on your seatbelt. I don't want to tell you mash your gas.

"But very shortly the Opposition Leader will be communicating with the Prime Minister and she will in fact be identifying, in her letter, her team.

"Protocol demands that this particular phase be done in a proper way, meaning that the Honourable Leader of the Opposition has to write to the Prime Minister. He wrote to her, she is writing to him, (and) when that letter comes out, we'll make it available to the media."

Mark declined to speculate.

"I cannot predict, I don't want to pre-empt (and) I don't want to be presumptuous."

Newsday was unable to contact Persad-Bissessar on her reply to Rowley and National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds on Griffith's inclusion.