IRA fails to give arms timetable

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble has warned the IRA must surrender its arms

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- The Northern Irish peace process remains on a knife-edge after the Irish Republican Army failed to issue a timetable for disarmament.

The IRA issued a statement confirming that it intends to decommission its weapons, but the leader of the pro-British Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) had warned he would withdraw from the power-sharing government if this process had not started by Thursday.

Analysts say the lack of a timeframe for disarmament increases the likelihood that Britain will strip powers this week from Northern Ireland's coalition government, the crumbling cornerstone of the 1998 peace pact.

The IRA's statement confirms Monday's announcement from the chief of the independent disarmament commission, General John de Chastelain, that the IRA had proposed an acceptable, confidential means for putting its weapons "beyond use."

Thursday's pledge said the outlawed republican paramilitary group had met the commission eight times since it resumed contact in March after a break of more than a year.

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However, it gave no further details on when the IRA would disarm, and accused its opponents of attempting to block progress.

"We note the ongoing attempts in some quarters to prevent progress," the IRA said in a statement released to Irish media. "They should not be permitted to succeed."

The government has until midnight on Saturday to persuade Trimble to seek again the post as first minister which he resigned last month, and to get his majority party to back and re-elect him. He has been under intense pressure from within the UUP.

Some of his MPs have called for a fresh start in place of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Many UUP members have also reverted to their old slogan of “no guns, no government,” meaning that they will refuse to serve in a power-sharing executive with Sinn Fein until there is IRA decommissioning.

If Trimble is not back in position by the weekend, Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid will have to choose whether to impose direct rule from London or to call new elections.

However, CNN's Matthew Chance said the deadline had been effectively brought forward to Thursday because without a 48-hour notice period, the Northern Ireland Assembly could not be recalled in time for Saturday's deadline.

An Anglo-Irish proposal contained in The Way Forward document aimed at rescuing the peace process has so far failed to win the backing of the three main parties supporting the process.

Both republicans and unionists have blamed each other for the dispute.

Gerry Adams, president of the IRA's political ally Sinn Fein, told a news conference on Wednesday: "I don't think any of us should underestimate the intensity of the crisis which is opening up.

"The reality is that the institutions are going to collapse in a very short time, given the management of the process at this point."

He said Trimble's threat for his party to pull out of the government was "an historic mistake."