A statement from the IRA on decommissioning would not be expected before the institutional issue in the North has been resolved, Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said yesterday. Christine Newman reports.
Mr Ahern said he thought major progress could be made on all the issues, on getting the institutions up and running, by the beginning of next year.
Asked if he would then expect an IRA statement on decommissioning, he said: "Only if the other issues happen. The order now has to be the institutional issue has to be resolved and then if we get that, then I'd hope we could make progress with the IRA. But you won't get it the other way round, that's quite clear."
"I think we can get a satisfactory conclusion on decommissioning, on putting arms beyond use, all of those areas, on policing. It won't happen tomorrow, but we can get a satisfactory conclusion on them all if we can sort out the institutions," the Taoiseach said.
He said the one part not finalised at the Leeds Castle talks was in regard to the institutional issue.
"I think if we can get that sorted out fairly quickly, I think we can make major progress by the beginning of next year on all of the issues, and I mean getting the institutions up and running... that would be the time-scale that would be realistic if all the bits fall into line.
"They needed to make progress on the institutional part, the relationships in strand one, two and three and what had been called accountability areas.
"I think that can be resolved. We're going to start again tomorrow on that and it can be teased out very quickly providing what you're trying to do is get over some of the technical issues of dealing with the Ministers' role, vis-a-vis the executive.
"If it was a question of trying to fundamentally change the Belfast Agreement it would be impossible because nobody would return to majoritarianism.
If it was about just trying to make the partnership work and cross-communities initiatives work, he thought it could be resolved, Mr Ahern said.
On most of the other issues, they made really good progress last week, he added.
On decommissioning, he said he did not think anybody would move on one front until this one on the institutional issue was sorted out. It really depended on the institutional issue, if they could get agreement on that.
The Taoiseach said they were not going to get agreement on Ministers. The argument was about Ministers who got their power from the statutes under the Act making decisions within their area of jurisdiction and the Assembly could override that decision.
"We will not get agreement on that because that would not be in line with power-sharing, that would not be in line with cross-community consent - there's no possibility of an agreement on that basis. So hopefully people will move off that, if they're really on it - it's not quite clear."