Unionist politicians have reacted with caution to today's IRA statement that it had ended its armed campaign and was committed to peaceful means.
In a statement the DUP said that the history of the past decade in Northern Ireland was "littered with IRA statements which we were told were 'historic', 'ground-breaking' and 'seismic'," the Democratic Unionist Party said in a statement.
"Even on the face of the statement, they have failed to explicitly declare an end to their multi-million-pound criminal activity and have failed to provide the level of transparency that would be necessary to truly build confidence that the guns had gone in their entirety."
DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson said he would need time to examine the statement in detail.
"We want to know when the IRA talks about not engaging in any other activity that includes criminal activity," Mr Donaldson said today. "We would liked it to have been more explicit with regards to criminality and obviously we would have liked to had detail on verification procedures.
"We want to look in detail at what's meant by the two church leaders being involved with the decommissioning process and just how much information will be brought out into the public domain."
Regarding the lack of any mention of policing in the statement Mr Donaldson said: "Sinn Féin have got to make a decision are they for or against."
Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey was also cautious. "I can't take any statement from the Republican movement at face value because we've had that many of them in the past," he said.
"We don't know where the gaps lie because after having had so many false starts in the past, naturally people are going to say actions speak louder than words.
"Let's see what happens to the weapons. Let's see what happens on the ground. It doesn't say it will disband and it doesn't say what will happen to policing. Let's wait and see what happens. If the arms are dealt with, if criminality is dealt with. With people getting proof of that happening, that will have far more impact than any statement that anyone will make," Sir Reg said.
The SDLP's Mark Durkan said the IRA appears to have indicated its break with violence is "clear, clean and complete".
He said there was an equal obligation on all loyalist paramilitaries to end paramilitarism. "The two governments and unionist parties must bring equal pressure to bear on them to ensure this."
Mr Durkan noted: "It has to be noted that today's statement does not commit to the provisional movement to policing. Yet policing is fundamental to accepting the rule of law and vital to tackle organised crime."
Former SDLP leader and Nobel peace prize winner John Hume called for the British and Irish governments to meet the Northern Ireland parties immediately to set about implementing the Belfast Agreement.
"I think it is a very important step, given the opposition that was coming from the DUP in particular," he said. "Now that the road is totally clear, I would be reasonably confident that we would make further progress."
"It is now the duty of all true democrats north and south to implement the will of the people. That's the strongest argument that can be put to the parties in the North.
"Obviously, a complete and absolute end to violence is a necessity in our situation."