Blair welcomes IRA decommissioning

Monday, 26 September 2005 12:00 AM

The prime minister and the Irish premier have welcomed a report suggesting the IRA has completed total arms decommissioning.

The report by the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) was handed to the British and Irish governments earlier today,

At a historic press conference this afternoon, the head of the IICD, General John De Chastelain, said that he was satisfied that the arms decommissioning he and his colleagues have overseen "represents the totality of the IRA's arsenal".

And that sentiment was quickly echoed by the IRA themselves, who confirmed: "The process of putting arms beyond use has been completed."

In a joint statement Tony Blair and Irish taoiseach Bertie Ahern said they "warmly welcomed this landmark development".

But unionists have expressed concern that there was no photographic evidence of the decommissioning.

Speaking alongside two churchmen who had witnessed the decommissioning process "with their own eyes", the Canadian general said: "The commission has determined that the IRA has met its promise to decommission all arms."

He added: "We have observed and verified events to put beyond use very large quantities of arms, which we believe include all the arms in the IRA's possession."

After intense questioning from reporters, General de Chastelain defended his decision not to press for photographic evidence, saying that there was no point in asking for something that was not going to be agreed to.

He also refused to put a figure on the exact number of weapons that had been decommissioned, but said that an inventory had been made to ratify the process.

Former Methodist minister Harold Good and Catholic priest Father Alec Reid added their authority to the statement, impressing that they were "completely independent" and were not asked to witness the process by the IRA.

"We are certain, utterly certain, about the exactitude of this report because we have spent many days watching the painstaking and meticulous way the commission went about their task of decommissioning," the two religious leaders said in a joint statement.

"The experience of seeing this with our own eyes demonstrated to us, and would have demonstrated to anyone, beyond any shadow of doubt that the arms of the IRA have now been decommissioned.

"We wish to assure everyone that the decommissioning of the arms of the IRA is now an accomplished fact."

Today's statement follows the IRA announcement on July 28th that it had ended its armed campaign, bringing more than 30 years of violence to an end.

"Having sought to achieve this outcome for so many years, its significance now needs to be acknowledged and recognised," the British and Irish premiers said in a joint statement.

"It is the clearest signal ever that the IRA's armed campaign is over," the two leaders added.

But the Ulster Unionist party called for more to be done, saying: "It is imperative that the movement's criminal empire be dismantled as well."

And Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader Dr Ian Paisley called the report a "complete failure", claiming that "not one iota" of evidence was given by the IRA that its promise to decommission had been fulfilled.

"To describe the events of today as transparent would be the falsehood of the century," he added, emphasising that there was neither photographic evidence nor exact figures given for the number of weapons that were decommissioned.

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