Politicians satisfied with IRA arms pledge

Senior Sinn Fein and Ulster Unionist Party politicians appeared satisfied yesterday that the IRA would honour its commitments to carry out confidence-building measures on arms.

There has been some concern in recent days that, due to controversy over whether the Police Bill diverged too far from the Patten proposals on police reform, the IRA might refuse to open some of its arms dumps for inspection.

But both the Sinn Fein Minister of Education, Mr Martin McGuinness, and the UUP security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, warned against creating a sense of crisis on the issue. They seemed content that the IRA pledges would be met.

In west Belfast Mr McGuinness said this was not the time to be "issuing threats or ultimatums" about what the IRA should do. "Everybody knows commitments were made by different parties in the course of the Hillsborough discussions. I expect everybody to live up to the commitments they made," he added.

"In fact I have more confidence that the IRA will live up to their commitments than I do in many others," Mr McGuinness said.

He added, nonetheless - without actually linking Patten to the IRA's pledge to carry out a confidence-building measure "within weeks" - that it was vital that Patten was implemented in full. "It's absolutely incumbent, particularly upon the British government, when they say they intend to implement the Patten proposals, they need to do that, not the Mandelson proposals, but the Patten proposals."

Mr Ken Maginnis, after leading a UUP team in talks with Gen John de Chastelain's decommissioning body in Belfast yesterday, said progress was being made on the arms issue. He recognised that this was a "sensitive time" and he had no intention of issuing "challenges" or saying anything designed to provoke.

He said the decommissioning body was working away in Belfast and Dublin, as were the independent arms inspectors, the former Finnish president, Mr Martti Ahtisaari, and the former African National Congress general secretary, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa.

"We are content that the commissioners are working hard. They are dividing their time between here and Dublin. We believe that the international inspectors, who will, to a large extent, keep their activity quiet, are hard at work and we look forward to an early report," Mr Maginnis added.

In Glasgow yesterday the North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, also took a calm position on the arms issue. It wasn't helpful to be worrying about what should happen if things went wrong. He wanted to see things go right, he told reporters.

London and Dublin are also understood to be reasonably happy that the IRA will honour its May statement that it would initiate a "process that will completely and verifiably put IRA arms beyond use".

This process includes an early confidence-building measure to open a number of arms dumps for inspection.

A Dublin source said the battle over Patten and the Police Bill was separate from the Hillsborough deal. "We have no reason to believe that the IRA won't live up to their promises. They always have done in the past," he said.

No deadline has been set for this confidence-building measure and most politicians are aware that imposing cut-off dates is counter-productive when dealing with the IRA. Nonetheless, there is an expectation of movement before the end of the month.