Trimble to meet de Chastelain tonight
Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble will not make any comment on the IRA’s statement until after he meets the chairman of the decommissioning body tonight.
Mr Trimble is expected to meet General John de Chastelain to discuss the decommissioning of IRA arms, which is underway, according to the IRA statement.
General de Chastelain is expected to submit a report on the matter either tonight or tomorrow.
The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, will also wait for General de Chastelain’s report before making any comment on today’s historic statement but he told the Dail that he hopes a situation can arise where “there will be no [Irish Republican] Army, there will be no instructions, there will be no paramilitary activities”.
He also said he hopes the loyalist paramilitaries who are still active in the North will also decommission their weapons as an act of faith in the peace process.
The SDLP’s Brid Rodgers welcomed the IRA statement but said David Trimble’s response will be the most important.
She said anti-agreement unionists who built their careers on doubting the IRA’s commitment to decommissioning must “look very carefully at what is now on offer”.
Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said he hopes the statement can rekindle the hope, vision and expectation that followed the initial signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
He added that the onus is now on politicians from across the religious divide to capitalise on the new opportunity and “to show conclusively that politics can work”.
