The IRA has effectively promised to put all its weaponry beyond use by the turn of the year in return for firm DUP commitments to share power with Sinn Féin, authoritative Irish sources have confirmed. Gerry Moriarty and Frank Millar report.
At talks in Leeds Castle, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, outlined to the parties a sequence of gestures by which the IRA could act to demonstrate its peaceful intentions, talks insiders said. This could involve the IRA:
Issuing a "strong" statement saying it was decommissioning and ending activity;
Following the statement with a major act of decommissioning;
Issuing a timetable of imminent acts of decommissioning.
The IRA may allow an act of decommissioning to be photographed to help establish in a persuasive way the extent of the disarmament, according to sources.
If a comprehensive deal can be worked out in the coming weeks, sources believe the IRA would respond radically and positively and in a manner that could convince "ordinary people" that its campaign of violence was at an end. The disarmament would take place through Gen John de Chastelain's decommissioning body.
There is huge sensitivity about what might happen in the coming days and weeks. DUP sources refused to confirm the possibility of a visual aspect to decommissioning with one senior figure warning that how media reports were presented could wreck the possibility of a historic deal. "The last thing we want is stories saying the DUP is demanding this or that from the IRA because that's the one sure way of ensuring it won't happen. We're being careful here," he said.
Other DUP sources said any emergent IRA text would be scrutinised for evidence or ambiguity to challenge the belief of Mr Blair and Mr Ahern that they can resolve what they described on Saturday as "the issues to do with ending paramilitary activity and putting weapons beyond use."
Republican sources would not elaborate on what the IRA was prepared to do. But other informed sources said there was a real chance that this time Gen de Chastelain would be believed by unionists when he gave details about further IRA disarmament.
The governments and the parties viewed as highly significant the measured and in many ways positive tone of comments from the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, after the talks ended on Saturday.
He said he would not be "bluffed" by the IRA but indicated a willingness to test its sincerity. He added: "I believe that a golden opportunity has been available to realise a stable and entirely peaceful future and I told the Prime Minister that in some respects we have never been closer to solving the problems that have plagued us for decades."
Mr Tom Kitt, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and Northern Secretary Mr Paul Murphy meet the parties at Stormont tomorrow to try to resolve remaining procedural issues. The main stumbling block is devising a system of ministerial accountability acceptable to pro-Belfast Agreement parties and the DUP.
DUP MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson told The Irish Times that the Prime Minister and Taoiseach had been unable to provide specific assurances about the timetable for the completion of IRA decommissioning, or about the DUP's required "visual aspect" to the verification process.
Mr Donaldson confirmed that an important issue in the continuing negotiation concerns the future status of the IRA. Mr Donaldson said his party had pressed Mr Blair and Mr Ahern on the issue. "We asked for clarity about their intention to stand down their private army and whether after that they would form some sort of Old Comrades Association. But we still haven't got an answer to that," he said.