A spokesman for Mr Gerry Adams has predicted that the IRA will meet its commitments on weapons, despite conflicting reports on whether another IRA gesture on arms is imminent.
A series of British army and RUC demilitarisation measures announced at the weekend increased speculation that the IRA was about to make a move on weapons, but this was contradicted by a Daily Telegraph report yesterday that there would be no more movement on decommissioning until "a united Ireland is a certainty".
The Daily Telegraph report cited "senior security sources" as saying that members of the seven-member IRA Army Council delivered its message to IRA members in such a way as "to exclude even a further inspection of those dumps already visited".
Such a stance would be a reversal of the IRA statement of May which said a number of IRA dumps "will be reinspected regularly to ensure that the weapons have remained silent". The first inspection took place in June when the former Finnish president, Mr Martti Ahtisaari, and the former secretary-general of the African National Congress, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, viewed a number of IRA arms dumps.
Mr Adams's spokesman said yesterday that with so many contradictory reports in the Sunday papers and in yesterday's Daily Telegraph someone appeared to be playing "mind games" with the issue.
"Our view on this is on the record. Gerry Adams said in recent days that he was quite confident that the IRA will keep its commitments. It has done so in the past, and I have no reason to believe it won't do so now. I don't see the point in making a crisis out of an issue where there is no crisis," the spokesman said.
The Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, also appeared sanguine about the prospects of another IRA gesture on arms. "People have made commitments and I expect them to honour them and to do so in a way that maintains the greatest mutual confidence on all sides of the community," he said in Belfast yesterday.
Meanwhile, the North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, who already has to face his Ulster Unionist Party conference in Belfast on Saturday, may now have to confront a no-confidence motion in the Assembly on Monday or Tuesday.
The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, has tabled a motion that "this Assembly has no confidence in the First Minister". The motion cannot succeed because it does not meet the requirement for cross-community party consensus, but it could embarrass Mr Trimble, who could be challenged for the leadership of the UUP by the Lagan Valley MP, Mr Jeffrey Donaldson.
The UUP Assembly chief whip, Mr Jim Wilson, said the motion was a typical "DUP stunt". He added: "The DUP are the prophets of disaster and offer no leadership and no viable alternatives to the people of Northern Ireland. We expect every Assembly member elected as an Ulster Unionist Party member to support the leader."
The agenda for Saturday's UUP conference in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast seeks to avoid the issues dividing the party. There are no specific motions dealing with South Antrim, policing or the security situation, although these matters are almost certain to arise in some form.
A motion from Mr John Taylor's Strangford association welcomes political progress to date but insists all paramilitary weapons must be decommissioned, while a Mid Ulster motion demands that the Union flag fly over government buildings in the North.
