It had been suspected, given the negative Ulster Unionist reaction to the IRA decommissioning offer, that at some stage the offer would be withdrawn. Sinn Fein sources indicated on Monday that this was likely but gave no impression that it was an immediate prospect. With the six-week Assembly moratorium under way and most of the political negotiators on holiday it seemed there would be a period of grace before the IRA decided to withdraw its offer.
Events in South America may have precipitated the IRA's decision to withdraw its offer, according to Government sources.
Issuing the statement served to attract media attention away from the news from Colombia that the IRA had been training with one of the world's most disreputable terrorist groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Senior sources close to the Northern Ireland political process said this revelation is likely to be highly embarrassing to Sinn Fein, given how FARC is viewed in Washington. The US administration has devoted great efforts and money to helping the Colombian authorities combat FARC, which the US State Department describes as a "narco-terrorist" group which has developed into a hugely wealthy drugs cartel.
The involvement of the IRA with such a group - not only involved in drugs but also in revolutionary Marxism - is likely to damage its reputation with sympathisers in the US and with the administration of President Bush.
There was an urgent need yesterday for Sinn Fein - one of whose former ardcomhairle members was under arrest in Bogota - to try to disguise the fact that its military wing was involved with FARC.
The statement withdrawing the decommissioning "initiative" does not, however, take the IRA back to its position pre-May 2000 when it broke off contact with the IICD after the first suspension of the Assembly.
This time the IRA has withdrawn its "proposal" for decommissioning but its statement mentioned nothing about breaking off contact with Gen de Chastelain's officials.
Decommissioning, Government sources surmised, has therefore only been removed from the bargaining table temporarily.
The fact remains, one source pointed out, that the IRA has worked out a means for decommissioning with the commission officials. If this method of "verifiable" arms disposal has been worked out, it seems obvious that it will remain the same should the IRA decide to reinstate its offer. The hard work, as it were, has been done.
In its statement yesterday the IRA said it was withdrawing because of unionist "rejection" of its offer and the British government's "failure to fulfil their commitments". These references, along with the decision not to break off contact with the IICD, were seen as indicators that these are all matters that are up for negotiation.
The final lines of the statement were seen as leaving the door open to further negotiation: "The conditions therefore do not exist for progressing our proposition. The IRA leadership will continue to monitor developments. Peacekeeping is a collective effort."
"Conditions" can change, as one source put it. The reference to the IRA continuing to "monitor" developments suggests it can come around to the way of thinking that led it, in the first place, to offer decommissioning.
Senior security sources in the North, however, remain sceptical about the IRA's real intentions. The latest revelations about the IRA's activities in Colombia support their view that the IRA is, finally, not interested in ending its military operations but merely refining and redirecting them.
There is now clear uncertainty among unionists about what the IRA is up to. There was a clamour of "I told you so" calls yesterday as news of the arrests in Bogota spread.
The Colombian episode will make it much more difficult for David Trimble to persuade the doubters in his party that any IRA offer to decommission could be taken seriously.
If Mr Trimble can't sell decommissioning as a worthwhile object for negotiations, then the political process in the North really is in trouble.
Even Sinn Fein senses that the chances of reaching agreement with unionists, even after decommissioning, might be slipping. A senior Sinn Fein source expressed concern on Monday that the rejectionist elements in the Ulster Unionist Party might make it impossible for Mr Trimble to persuade his party back into Stormont even with decommissioning.
All sides seemed resigned yesterday to the fact that more months of slow and difficult negotiations lie ahead.