A senior Ulster Unionist MP has reacted angrily to a newspaper article by a former MI6 director accusing unionist and British Conservative politicians of using decommissioning as a pretext to disengage from the peace process.
In an article in yesterday's Sunday Times, Mr Michael Oatley, who headed MI6's counter-terrorism section and liaised between successive British governments and the republican movement for over 20 years, said many in the Ulster Unionist Party were "seeking to withdraw" from the Belfast Agreement while setting preconditions which would put the blame for its failure on Sinn Fein.
The UUP security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, dismissed Mr Oatley's views as "rubbish".
"His analysis is certainly flawed and would not stand up to scrutiny. I don't know what his motivation or needs may be, but obviously he is not close to the scene. Any on-the-scene observer would recognise that the Ulster Unionists have committed themselves fully and irrevocably to inclusive government. It would not be possible for us to step back from the commitment given," he told The Irish Times.
In the article, the former MI6 director, who was closely involved in bringing the IRA to the negotiating table in the early 1990s, said the real choice facing any organisation in Northern Ireland was one between politics and violence.
"There are lots of guns in Ireland and in the hands of both communities in the North. The question is not whether an organisation has, or can, obtain weapons. It is whether it will choose violent or political action," he added.
The decision to give up violence was taken by "intelligent, ideologically committed individuals" within Sinn Fein.
The idea of a ceasefire was fiercely opposed by elements within the IRA who feared it would break up the republican movement. Despite this, the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, and the party's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, decided to take the risk, Mr Oatley said.
"The Prime Minister has said he accepts the sincerity of the two principal spokesmen. From longer experience, I have no doubt at all of their commitment to finding a political way forward. I should be surprised if most participants in the Mitchell review did not share this view by now." He said there was an explanation for the IRA's reluctance to begin decommissioning.
"Weapons and caches are widely dispersed under the control of local cells. Volunteers are not sheep. All joined to pursue an armed campaign for agreed objectives, which have now been modified. Discipline in the face of such changes has been remarkable.
"Confidence in new policies takes time. Members of the republican movement are determined it shall not be destroyed by false promises," he concluded.
A spokesman for Sinn Fein said Mr Oatley's article confirmed everything his party had been saying for a long time. "I hope unionists will take note."