The IRA should not be rushed into publishing its response to calls that the organisation should end paramilitarism and eventually wind up, the Irish and British governments said yesterday.
The IRA's internal debate was discussed at a meeting in Dublin between Minister for Justice Michael McDowell and Northern Secretary Peter Hain.
"I can't say when it is going to come, you can't pick a date," Mr Hain said. "What matters is that it is a credible statement, a definitive statement and that it banishes forever criminality and paramilitarism from NI politics and its infection across the Border.
"That is the crucial thing. I would rather have a credible statement that is really deliverable on the ground than a premature one," he went on.
Mr McDowell said: "I think that there are signs that the underlying political realities are causing the Provisional movement in its entirety to address the need for such a statement as a matter of urgency."
Asked if the IRA statement could come before Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair held a British-Irish Inter-governmental conference at the end of the month, Mr McDowell said: "It is better that a credible statement emerges even a little bit later than an incredible or premature statement emerges to meet some deadline."
The two leaders will meet in London tomorrow, though Northern Ireland will feature only on the margins of the talks which will be dominated by European Union issues, including the future of the EU constitution and the worsening row about the EU's budget.
Expressing satisfaction with the level of co-operation between the Garda Síochána and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Mr Hain said the two forces were "joined at the hip".