THE International Body on Decommissioning is considering recommending a gradual decommissioning of paramilitary weapons once all party talks are started, according to a report on the BBC Newsnight programme.
The programme claimed last night to have seen a document Ii sting key recommendations which the commission's chairman, the former US senator, Mr George Mitchell, is considering for his report, due to be published next Wednesday.
However, spokesmen for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)and Sinn Fein immediately ruled out any such gradual decommissioning.
The International Body on Decommissioning was set up last December in an attempt to resolve deadlock arising from the British government's insistence that the IRA make a "gesture" on arms before Sinn Fein engages in full political talks.
According to the programme, the Mitchell team wants to recommend that the handing over of arms as a precondition to entering talks is not insisted on by Britain.
Instead, it is hoping to suggest that decommissioning takes place on a staged basis during negotiations. It also reported that paramilitary groups will have to accept independent verification of the arms decommissioning.
Speaking on the programme, the UUP's security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, said he did not believe that Senator Mitchell would come up with "something so simplistic that it brings the guns to the negotiating table".
He said that if the Newsnight report was correct, "then you're saying that guns can be brought to the table of democracy. They can be part of the bargaining factor in terms of political negotiations but then that isn't democracy, is it?"
The chairman of Sinn Fein, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, told Newsnight that the reported Mitchell proposal sounded like a variation of Britain's demand for a decommissioning "gesture" before Sinn Fein is allowed into talks.
"Whether in whole or in instalments, it would be absolutely unacceptable to Republicans," he said.
The programme also said the document would urge paramilitary groups to commit themselves to decommissioning and never return to violence.