The former British prime minister, Mr John Major, is optimistic that the IRA will decommission its weapons, destroying its arms and explosives itself rather than handing them over.
"I think it is more likely that they will disarm than that they will not," he said on Saturday, later adding: "I think it is most likely to be the self-destruction of weapons rather than handing them over. I don't personally think that matters. The real point is to get the weapons out of commission."
Mr Major, who in 1993 paved the way for recent developments when he signed the Downing Street Declaration with the then Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds, also warned of the threat of an IRA split over decommissioning.
"The IRA are not a homogenous body. People who believe that it is just a single body - that discipline extends absolutely from top to bottom, and if the leaders of the IRA say do something it happens - I think misunderstand it.
"There are many different groups within the IRA, which is why the danger exists that there will be a split on one or other side of the paramilitary groups and somebody will split off and return to violence. That is always a danger."
Mr Gregory Campbell of the Democratic Unionist Party said a "further fudge" on the issue was the most likely outcome.
"Anyone who is expecting some kind of Alamo in February is living in cloud-cuckoo-land," he said.
He predicted that events surrounding decommissioning would be kept vague. "The entire political process has been built on events that can be interpreted one way by one group of people, but interpreted in a wholly different direction by another group," he added.