The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is expected to make a major announcement on its future today.
With British Prime Minister Tony Blair due in Belfast next week for the official opening of the restored power-sharing executive, the loyalist paramilitary group is likely to signal the start of moves to wind down.
The UVF first declared a ceasefire almost 14 years ago - just after the IRA's first cessation - as part of the political process at that time that led towards the April 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
However, the organisation has been responsible for several murders since then.
Dawn Purvis, leader of the organisation's political wing, the Progressive Unionist Party, has already held a series of meetings with PSNI Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde, Secretary of State Peter Hain and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern before today's announcement.
There have been repeated demands for all the loyalist paramilitary groups, especially the Ulster Defence Association, to end their heavy involvement in criminality and to get rid of their weapons.
It is not clear if the UVF statement is likely to go as far as declaring some form of decommissioning at this stage, but sources have insisted Mr Blair should not underestimate its significance.
The UVF is responsible for scores of assassinations in the North, mostly of Catholics, over 30 years.
The loyalist terrorist group also is believed to be responsible for the greatest loss of life in a single day when it planted bombs in Dublin and Monaghan on May 17th, 1974 killing 33 people.
A group of Ulster Volunteer Force members in Belfast, known as the Shankill Butchers, reached notoriety during the 1970s with their campaign of abducting Catholics - usually walking home from a night out.
Their victims were tortured and beaten before being killed, usually by having their throats cut. Most of their victims had no connection to the IRA or any other republican groups.