Disputes over IRA decommissioning have dogged the peace process, writes Dan Keenan.
"Let us make it clear that there will be no decommissioning by the IRA," P O'Neill forecast on April 30th, 1998 in the wake of the signing of the Belfast Agreement.
Perhaps not the IRA signatory's most accurate projection, but one which has served to illustrate the centrality of the issue.
With further decommissioning now expected, it seems as if the thorny question is finally on course for settlement. Yet virtually no unionist seems prepared to believe that the IRA's war is over and that it will dispose of the means to restart a campaign. Verification is central and the next moves by the IRA and overseer of the process, Gen John de Chastelain, will prove crucial.
With a reversal of policy on decommissioning by the IRA, as evidence by P O'Neill's remark in April 1998, the Provisionals now appear to accept that keeping guns causes it more grief than disposing of them.
Graffiti in Belfast used to shout: "One bullet, one ounce equals surrender". How things have changed and the process of shifting from the declaration of April 1998 to the one P O'Neill signed last week have proved both tortuous and long.
"Those who demand the decommissioning of IRA weapons lend themselves in the current context inadvertently or otherwise to the failed agenda which seeks the defeat of the IRA," said P O'Neill on July 21st, 1999.
However by November 17th that year, the tone appeared to have softened.
"The IRA will appoint a representative to enter into discussions with Gen John de Chastelain and the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD)," it said. But by February 2000 things had soured to the point where the IRA reverted to its original position.
In the months which followed, linkages between IRA decommissioning and British demilitarisation and political reforms were more evident.
Negotiations led to a proposed sequence of events which envisaged a return to power-sharing linked to a firm IRA decommissioning pledge.
On May 6th the IRA made an unprecedented statement that two international inspectors would be allowed to see some arms dumps.
By mid-2001 P O'Neill reported that the IRA had met Gen de Chastelain on eight occasions and agreed a scheme for decommissioning.
However unionists rejected this, enraging republicans and prompting the IRA to withdraw its offer to Gen de Chastelain.
Yet only months later, and following the furore over the arrest of the "Colombia 3", the IRA announced that it had finally begun decommissioning.
In a statement on October 23rd it said it had undertaken moves to "save the peace process" and "to persuade others of our genuine intentions".
The following spring, after weeks of expectation, the IRA announced that it had put a second consignment of weapons "beyond use".
It described its action as unilateral and insisted that the onus was on the British government and unionists to make the peace work.
But after the suspension of devolution in October 2002 amid allegations of an IRA spy ring at Stormont, it issued a statement announcing that it was once again suspending talks with the IICD. Twelve months of stalemate followed.
By October 2003 the IRA endorsed a statement made by Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, adding it was committed to "resolving" the weapons issue.
As part of carefully agreed "choreography", P O'Neill claimed on October 21st that the IRA's relationship with the IICD was back on.
The move to restore Stormont collapsed and remained mired until further attempts at Leeds Castle, Kent the following autumn, by which time Ian Paisley's DUP were the leading unionist party.
Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern arrived in Belfast on December 6th to hail their "comprehensive agreement", but instead had to admit that verifiable decommissioning remained an unbridged gap.
The DUP wanted photographs, causing the IRA to respond: "For his part, Ian Paisley demanded that our contribution be photographed, and reduced to an act of humiliation. This was never possible." This was quickly followed by the £26.5 million Northern Bank raid and, within weeks, by the Robert McCartney murder.