including the full text of the IRA statement
The Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, has expressed confidence that the IRA will honour its commitment to put in place a confidence-building measure demonstrating that its arms remained securely dumped.
After the Hillsborough deal in early May the IRA issued a statement saying that "within weeks" it would meet this commitment. It said it would resume contact with Gen John de Chastelain's decommissioning body and would allow a number of its arms dumps to be examined by two international inspectors, Mr Martti Ahtisaari and Mr Cyril Ramaphosa.
Six weeks have elapsed and there is growing concern among pro-Belfast Agreement unionists that the IRA might not carry out its undertaking. This prompted Mr Mandelson to try to assuage those anxieties.
"I believe those commitments will be fulfilled. They were honestly and sincerely gone into and signed up to," he said yesterday.
The First Minister, Mr David Trimble, has refused to be tied to a timetable for the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons as demanded by the DUP in the Assembly.
Defending himself against accusations by Dr Ian Paisley that he had been "taken for a ride" by the IRA, Mr Trimble admitted that he had not received a progress report by Gen de Chastelain's Independent International Commission on Decommissioning since February 11th, but said it would be "purely speculative" for him to give any timetable for disarmament.
The First Minister pointed to the IRA's statement expressing its intention to put in place a confidence-building measure "within weeks", which in his view, was an indication of a time-frame.
"The phrase `within weeks' itself contains a time dimension," Mr Trimble said, rejecting claims by the DUP's Mr Ian Paisley jnr that some of his recent public statements had been based more on impressing his party executive than on any real hope that a weapons handover would occur.