The IRA has withdrawn proposals it says it made to dispose of its weapons and to end activities that might endanger the Belfast Agreement. It says it is doing this because the Irish and British governments have broken their commitments. Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent, reports.
In a tactic previously used by the IRA after failed negotiations in 2003, it said last night: "We are taking all our proposals off the table."
There was no threat to increase the level of violence but the organisation said: "It is our intention to closely monitor ongoing developments and to protect to the best of our ability the rights of republicans and our support base."
Issued as usual in the name of "P O'Neill", the statement said the IRA had taken "significant and substantive initiatives" as contributions to the peace process. But these had been rejected by those who "demanded the humiliation of the IRA".
There was no immediate response last night from the Government whose spokeswoman said it did not comment on IRA statements. She said the Government remained deeply disappointed that a deal had not been agreed in December.
Sinn Féin's president Mr Gerry Adams, said: "The IRA statement is obviously a direct consequence of the retrograde stance of the two governments. It is evidence of a deepening crisis and I regret that very much."
Dublin and London sources said the statement had not been expected but was not a surprise, bearing in mind the IRA's past announcements of the withdrawal of proposed initiatives.
According to a Downing Street spokesman last night: "The fact remains that it was the IRA that did carry out the Northern Bank robbery and as the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach said yesterday therefore it is the IRA that is the sole obstacle to moving forward."
One well-placed Dublin source said that nothing "withdrawn" last night by the IRA had ever been agreed. "These were proposals they had put on the table that nobody was signing up for. They are taking off the table what wasn't good enough to secure a deal in the first place. They couldn't make decommissioning transparent, and they couldn't sign up to our proposal on criminal activity."
In its statement last night the IRA put the blame for the deterioration in the North's political process on the shoulders of the two governments because of their pandering to "rejectionist unionism".
It says that late last year the IRA leadership had been "prepared to speedily resolve the issue of arms, by Christmas if possible, and to invite two independent witnesses, from the Protestant and Catholic churches, to testify to this".
The IRA had also been prepared to move into what the statement describes as "a new mode", had there been a comprehensive settlement. In such circumstances they had been prepared to "instruct our Volunteers that there could be no involvement whatsoever in activities which might endanger that agreement", it says.
This is the IRA's alternative wording to the "no criminality clause" which the governments had sought. This would have the IRA agreeing not to do anything that could endanger the rights and safety of others.
The IRA said that despite its "significant and substantive initiatives", others had sought "the humiliation of the IRA". The Government had lent itself to the efforts of "pro-unionist and anti-republican elements, including the British government", which had attacked, dismissed and devalued these IRA initiatives.
"Commitments have been broken or withdrawn", it went on. "British forces, including the PSNI, remain actively engaged in both covert and overt operations, including raids on republicans' homes." In the face of these and other facts, the IRA would not "remain quiescent" and was taking its offers off the table.