Dublin and London want the IRA to commit to peace in deed and word,writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
The Taoiseach Mr Ahern and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair posed three enormous questions to the IRA yesterday. Distilled into one question, the two leaders wanted written assurances that the organisation is shutting shop. They also wanted action.
The British and Irish governments, supported by the US administration, are playing for huge stakes here. They don't care what form of words the IRA employs but they want the organisation to make clear that its war is over.
What the governments required was the word and the deed. All day yesterday there were problems with the word and rumours about the deed. There was speculation that to try to kick-start the stalled engine of this process, the IRA might carry out a major act of decommissioning before the governments published their blueprint.
The analysis was that such a deed might obviate the requirement for words that would stick in the craw of P. O'Neill and his Irish Republican Army.
Some media people even parked outside decommissioning headquarters in Belfast yesterday in the half-expectation that the IRA was about to start dismantling its arsenals in front of Gen John de Chastelain.
"It hasn't happened," said a spokesman for the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning yesterday evening. Gen de Chastelain is back in town though. Rendering a number of IRA arms dumps beyond use would certainly assist the political process, but we keep returning to the fact that the proper text from the IRA is also essential to end the logjam, according to Dublin, London and the Ulster Unionists.
It was starkly clear yesterday that the British and Irish governments were not happy with the wording of the statement issued by the IRA on Sunday night. This is the statement that the IRA would issue if the Hillsborough package were published.
In the public IRA statement also issued on Sunday night - now called "the statement about the statement" - the organisation hinted that what was on offer was the IRA declaring its ceasefire was intact, its future intentions were peaceful, and that it would back this up with a third act of decommissioning.
"Hinted" is the operative word here. Mr Ahern and Mr Blair obviously felt that the statement for their eyes only, so to speak, did not provide the "clarity and certainty" they believed was crucial to a breakthrough. Otherwise they would have quickly packed their bags for Hillsborough.
Instead they sought clarification from the IRA, which Sinn Féin chairman Mr Mitchel McLaughlin said should be delivered. "Reasonable, sensible questions deserve reasonable, sensible answers," he said.
His leader, Mr Gerry Adams agreed, although he insisted that the secret statement was "clear and unambiguous".
The Ulster Unionist Party leader Mr David Trimble said there was only a day or so left in these negotiations, at most. Mr Trimble got sight of the secret IRA statement yesterday. He told the BBC and UTV that the statement failed to say that the IRA was going to end all paramilitary activity and did not make clear that the organisation would "cease to exist".
It is fair to deduce, therefore, that the governments have concerns around the same wording. For months now they have been stating that the IRA must clearly demonstrate it is ending all activity, and that, centrally, was the nature of the three questions for clarification that they posed to the IRA.
Mr Trimble was careful not to dislodge any remaining opportunity for breaking the deadlock. "I don't want to appear to be closing doors when there is still a possibility [of resolution]," he said. He described the statement as a "draft", which had improved since the original statement of last Wednesday that had so infuriated the two governments. His use of the word "draft" infuriated republicans, who said the statement was the finished product, although it could be clarified.
Mr Trimble said further improvement to the wording was required if he were to sell it to his party and his ruling Ulster Unionist Council. "The statement must pass the sniff test," added another UUP source, by which he meant the wording had to be crystal clear to unionists that the IRA no longer posed a threat.
Mr Adams was reported to be in rather tetchy form yesterday. This is a testing time for republicans.
In the House of Commons, the Northern Secretary Mr Paul Murphy acknowledged the pressure republicans were under: "We will not ask anyone to surrender their legitimate aspirations. We do recognise how significant are the steps we are asking for. But the prize is huge and historic - for this generation and future generations. It is a prize which does not forget the past, but draws a line under the past.
"So, I urge all concerned in this process to redouble their efforts, so that future generations will stand back and admire the courage of those who took the long view, and chose the road to the future, not the past."
An appeal to the IRA to go out of business phrased in stirring language. But was it an appeal too far for republicans?
We should know today.