Sinn Fein's chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, has expressed confidence that the party's ardfheis will support the leadership's decision to recommend a Yes vote in the Belfast Agreement referendums on both sides of the Border, and also accept a recommendation that Sinn Fein members take their seats in the new Northern assembly.
"I believe the party can bring a majority of its members with it on this," Mr McLaughlin said in Derry yesterday.
"I think the feedback we have got reflects a very strong view that unity is strength and that our party has actually strengthened itself through the course of these discussions, and that we recognise there are further opportunities and that we should take them. We should go at this confidently and try to create a permanent settlement that we all crave for."
A two-thirds majority will be required at the ardfheis to carry the motion to allow members to take seats in the assembly.
The proposals, although signalled in advance, represent a huge shift in Sinn Fein policy, particularly the move to allow members take seats in the assembly. This means the party has abandoned its abstentionist policy in the North and South. It is still refusing to take seats at Westminster.
Mr McLaughlin confirmed the Sinn Fein ardchomhairle position on the Belfast Agreement after a five-page document circulated to elements of the party following a meeting on Tuesday was leaked to Northern journalist Eamon Mallie.
The document expressed some misgivings about the agreement, but said the way forward had to be an endorsement of the Good Friday deal.
The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) said the Sinn Fein decision effectively meant republicans "recognising Stormont", while the DUP said it proved the agreement was a path to a united Ireland.
Mr Reg Empey, a senior member of the UUP talks team, focusing on the reported endorsement by the IRA of Sinn Fein members taking seats in a Northern assembly, said this was the "first formal admission by the republican movement that their so-called armed struggle has totally failed to break the will of the pro-union majority in Ulster".
The question that must be on the minds of many republicans was: what was the "`war of the last 30 years about if it ends up with the leadership recognising Stormont?"
The deputy DUP leader, Mr Peter Robinson, said the Sinn Fein recommendation was "clear evidence that the IRA recognises the advances towards a united Ireland contained in the agreement, and intends to pocket those concessions and continue their `struggle'.
"The IRA may be an evil and barbaric organisation, but no one could ever accuse them of being stupid or lacking a strategy. They see that this is a nationalist agenda which dovetails into their united Ireland goal," he added.
"The consequences of the recommendation for a Yes vote mean that the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and Gerry Adams, the mouthpiece of Sinn Fein/IRA, are now standing on the same platform advocating a Yes vote," said Mr Robinson.
He said it would be further perplexing for the unionist community that Mr Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness would be partners of Mr Trimble in an assembly cabinet while the IRA was continuing its "struggle".
The Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, welcomed the Sinn Fein decision as a "significant" development. "If it means that Sinn Fein are willing to go into the assembly, then I think it is a significant step forward," she said.
The SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, welcoming the decision, hoped that other parties would follow suit and campaign for a positive result in the referendums.
Mr McLaughlin rejected as absurd a claim by Mr Trimble that the IRA may engage in some "token" decommissioning after the assembly election. Such a move would only be a manoeuvre and people should not be duped by it, said Mr Trimble.
"We have reason to believe - we have no hard evidence but we think it is reliable - that Sinn Fein leaders indicated to various parties, including the Irish Government, some time ago that they would in the near future undertake some token decommissioning," said Mr Trimble.
