The Provisional IRA is committed to a purely political path and has made progress in eschewing paramilitary and criminal activity, the Independent Monitoring Commission has reported.
The ceasefire watchdog's 10th report, released in Belfast yesterday, however, acknowledged the IRA's leadership had a "challenging task" in ensuring total compliance with this strategy.
The latest report covers the period from last December until the end of February. Events since then, such as the Denis Donaldson murder, will be examined in the next report, expected in October.
The commission also noted efforts by loyalist paramilitaries to examine a political strategy, but reported that both still engage in violence, and particularly crime. They represented a threat to the rule of law.
Former Department of Justice civil servant Joe Brosnan, presenting the commission's latest findings, said the UVF's statement that it would not consider political options until after the November 24th deadline for the formation of a power-sharing Executive was "not encouraging".
However, he described the findings on the current state of the IRA as "positive".
"There has now been a substantial erosion in the [Provisional] IRA's capacity to return to a military campaign without a significant period of build-up, which in any event we do not believe they have any intentions of doing," he said.
The IRA had not engaged in training, targeting or recruitment in three months. The organisation was also seeking to end criminality. However, it was noted that some individuals within the republican movement, even some senior ones, were still involved in crime for their own ends.
The Meath truck hijacking of March 10th was an example of this, the report claimed, and illustrated the difficulties faced by the IRA leadership in ensuring that all its members live up to the statement made last July that its activities were to end.
The report pointed to "further evidence of positive leadership on the part of Sinn Féin". It also said it awaited proof that political efforts by David Ervine's Progressive Unionist Party, associated with the UVF, and the Ulster Political Research Group, linked to the UDA, were bearing fruit.
Mr Brosnan stood by a previous IMC report which referred to the retention of some guns following last September's destruction of the IRA weapons.
Some weapons were held, he said, but this was done at local level against the instruction of the leadership.
The numbers were insignificant when compared to the amounts put beyond use, he added. This fact did not diminish the IMC view that the IRA remained committed to a political path.
Loyalists were responsible for 95 per cent of shooting incidents and 76 per cent of assaults recorded during the review period, and not one was attributable to the Provisional IRA, the report said.
The murder of former Sinn Féin official and British intelligence agent Denis Donaldson on April 4th fell outside the timeframe of the current report. "To date we are not in a position to attribute responsibility for the murder," the report said. Lord Alderdice, an IMC colleague, said the commission would make public any major findings on the murder before the next scheduled report.
The report said dissident republican groups, including the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, were still intent on developing their structures and on waging a campaign of violence.
[ www.ireland.com/newspaper/special/2006/imcreport/index.pdf ]