British reaction: British Prime Minister Tony Blair welcomed the verdict of the international decommissioning body on the IRA's dumping of its weapons as an historic turning point in the search for peace in Northern Ireland.
Speaking at the Labour Party conference in Brighton, Mr Blair said: "I really think this does offer us the hope that, after all these years, sometimes very difficult years, the peace process in Northern Ireland can now be fulfilled."
He added: "And, in time, I hope that, as confidence builds, we can move to what I am sure the majority of people in Northern Ireland want which is to bring back devolved government to Northern Ireland where decisions about Northern Ireland are taken by the people of Northern Ireland."
Mr Blair said we have been waiting a very long time for this moment. "It has taken years of patience and perseverance and often disappointment. But we have tried to carry on with unquenchable optimism that Northern Ireland can have a different and better future.
He said it was a very important moment. "I know that people will be sceptical. But this is a decision and a report by Gen de Chastelain and independent witnesses from the clergy that the decommissioning is real and is complete."
Mr Blair added: "We have now got to also go to the process of making sure that the other independent body (the Independent Monitoring Commission) which has been monitoring, to make sure that there is no paramilitary activity, no criminal activity of any kind - we have got to make sure that that report is fully satisfied."
Northern Secretary Peter Hain said the significance of decommissioning had to be apparent to everyone in Northern Ireland.
"People have got to see that there is the biggest dumping of arms and getting rid of the IRA's arsenal than ever before," he told the BBC.
"It has got to be part of a process where the IRA, as they promised in their historic statement at the end of July, deliver action on the ground to close down paramilitary activity and criminal violence."
Decommissioning could lead to the resumption of self-government, he stressed. "When that is clear then I think we should get all the parties round to start discussing the resumption of self-government."
Conservative shadow Northern Ireland secretary David Lidington welcomed the announcement on decommissioning but said if it had happened 5½ years ago - in line with the original timetable - its value as a means of building trust and confidence among unionists in the political process could have been of decisive importance.
He said: "Decommissioning is important, but it is only one element of what is needed for the republican movement to complete the transition from terrorism to peaceful and democratic politics.
"People in Northern Ireland will now want to see clear evidence that all forms of paramilitary and other criminal activities - including intimidation, shootings, beatings, robberies, smuggling, money laundering and exiling people from their homes - has ended for good."
- (PA)