DUP LEADER Peter Robinson has insisted the IRA's army council must go if police and justice powers are to be devolved.
However Sinn Féin has warned the First Minister not to turn his demand into an ultimatum blocking devolution.
The British and Irish governments will today point to the conclusions of a report by the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) showing the IRA army council still in existence but posing no paramilitary threat.
However, a British source went further last night suggesting the report would show there are now no grounds for further delaying the transfer of justice powers, thus completing devolution to Stormont. "There is more significance in the conclusions of the report than the current speculation would suggest. People should not confuse the relative shortness of the report with what will be seen as the groundbreaking nature of its conclusions."
The IMC assessment was conveyed to Mr Robinson by chief constable Sir Hugh Orde at a meeting at PSNI headquarters yesterday.
Speaking outside the meeting the DUP leader said he accepted the chief constable's assertion that the army council has no paramilitary purpose.
However, he continued: "But we require the removal of the IRA's army council and we've always made that clear." Responding, a senior Sinn Féin source warned against Mr Robinson's making a move on devolution conditional upon removal of all IRA structures.
"He would be very silly if he did," The Irish Times was told.
Mr Robinson said complete dismantling of all IRA structures and sufficient community confidence were needed to facilitate unionist support for justice devolution, a key Sinn Féin demand.
He further warned: "The finance issue has to be put in place and the structures have to be agreed. But all of that is in the context of the removal of the IRA's army council. I don't believe that we are in that position."
The IMC's special ad hoc report into the status of the IRA army council was requested in July and delivered to the two governments on Monday.
Northern secretary Shaun Woodward and Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern are expected to mark its publication this afternoon with calls for progress towards justice devolution, a key obstacle stalling the Stormont Executive which has not met for nearly three months.
The four-member IMC, which reports to the two governments on paramilitary activity, admitted the army council could have a change-management role overseeing the paramilitary group's transformation.
DUP and Sinn Féin leaders are expected to meet for talks tomorrow as they begin the task of settling their long-running split on a series of issues including the devolution of justice powers, education reform, the future of the Maze prison site and support for the Irish language.
Agreement on such talks was reached in early June, but no such talks have been hosted.
In Dublin, Sinn Féin's Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said: "Whatever is in the IMC report, Sinn Féin is here to address the representative politics that we have been entrusted to articulate.
"IMC reports and any other contributions to the ongoing difficulties that may present north of the Border - these are, at the end of the day, another dimension entirely and the IMC's contribution heretofore has been not been helpful."
SDLP leader Mark Durkan last night accused the leaders of Sinn Féin and the DUP of playing a dangerous game with the devolved institutions which can only encourage republican dissident groups. "Threatening political instability can only encourage those who are ready to use violence to destabilise the [Belfast] agreement," he said.
"These dissident groups use the old Provo rhetoric about a 'British police force' and 'crown forces' in justifying their attacks on PSNI officers. It is clear that delivering devolution of justice and policing would be the most decisive way for all democrats to defy and deny the destructive ambitions of these dangerous groups."