The British government has welcomed comments by Sinn Féin MP Mr Martin McGuinness that his war against Britain is over. Mr McGuinness made the remarks during a BBC documentary about him last night.
"My war is over," he said. "My job as a political leader is to prevent war. My job is to continue to ensure a political set of circumstances which will never again see British soldiers or members of the IRA lose their lives as a result of political conflict."
An official spokesman for the British Prime Minister said both Mr McGuinness and Mr Gerry Adams had been very positive since Mr Blair made a speech in Belfast effectively calling for the Provisional IRA to disband.
"Since the Prime Minister's speech, there have been a number of straws in the wind which have been very interesting and useful. One was Gerry Adams's own thoughtful speech at the weekend," the spokesman said.
"David Trimble responded to that in quite a positive and thoughtful way himself and Martin McGuinness's comments add to that. I think people do recognise we are at a point where, as the Prime Minister said, it is a turning point, a fork in the road and we do have to talk about acts of completion."
Unionists have dismissed Mr McGuinness's comments. Ulster Unionist MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson claimed efforts were being made to airbrush out the Sinn Féin MP's violent past.
He said unionist viewers of the BBC programme were outraged at its tone. It had concentrated on images of Mr McGuinness playing with his grandson in the park and shied away from his involvement in Provisional IRA violence, he claimed.
"This is an attempt to sanitise Martin McGuinness and present a softer side to the hard man image. There are many families today where the father is not alive to push the child on the swing because the IRA murdered him. The pain and violence which was inflicted when he was an IRA leader will not go away simply because the BBC choose to present Martin McGuinness in a softer light."
DUP Assembly member Mr Sammy Wilson said: "Martin McGuinness is attempting to portray himself as a genial old commander who has packed his Armalite and put it in his loft, hung his combat fatigues in his wardrobe and put his balaclava into the bottom drawer to take up cooking and fishing.
"It is yet another cynical attempt by republicans to rebrand themselves and disguise what they really are about."
Mr Wilson said the Provisional IRA had not changed at all. "They still import guns, they still organise attacks on civilians and they have exported their terror methods to Spain, Colombia and other parts of the world. Only the gullible will be fooled by the weasel words of Martin McGuinness. Those who deal in the real world see him for the charlatan that he is."
Meanwhile, a senior Church of Ireland clergyman has said the Provisional IRA must disband in order to restore shattered confidence in the peace process. Bishop Ken Good predicted the political crisis would deepen if all paramilitary organisations, including loyalist ones, did not stand down.