Sinn Féin acceptance of law and order in Northern Ireland would remove the last obstacle to restored devolution, a Protestant church leader said today.
Former Methodist President the Reverend Harold Good warned Republicans would only accept policing if it paved the way for local government by the November 24th deadline and urged the Democratic Unionist Party not to impose anymore pre-conditions.
Mr Good was one of the witnesses of the IRA's final act of decommissioning in September 2005 and he said there could be no doubt that the IRA's action had been sincere.
"My plea to the parties would be that people need to help each other, the parties need to move on," he said.
"Sinn Féin need to help by dealing with policing and resolving that issue but Unionists, and the DUP in particular, need to help Sinn Féin by giving good reason to believe that when this is done there will be no other obstacles in the way of evolution."
Mr Good added that no mainstream IRA bullets had been fired since they put their arms beyond use and said there was growing confidence in their intentions.
He and Catholic Priest Father Alec Reid verified the 2005 statement on Republican decommissioning given by General John de Chastelian, the head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. He added that loyalists accepted the IRA was no longer a threat and said it was only a matter of time before Sinn Féin embraced policing.
"I think there is every indication coming from the Republican quarter that there will be progress on policing," he added.
"I think that in order to bring that to the Ard Fheis, they need to know that they have good reason to believe that others will acknowledge that and move forward and that needs to be done as soon as possible."
He added that the main obstacles to peaceful co-existence had been removed and said the people of Northern Ireland desired a working assembly and executive.
The Independent Monitoring Commission has delivered a series of encouraging verdicts about the IRA's actions but there are lingering concerns in some quarters about Republican criminality.
DUP assembly man Ian Paisley Jnr said support of policing was an essential first step but said negotiations for devolved government were a separate issue.
He said you could not trade-off support for law and order against a threat of gangsterism and added support for policing was a stepping stone to negotiations.
PA