A group of Republican and Democratic senators has tabled a resolution in the US Senate calling on the IRA to go out of business and on the DUP to commit itself to power-sharing under the Belfast Agreement.
The resolution, tabled by Senator Edward Kennedy, was co-sponsored by Democratic Senators Chris Dodd, Pat Leahy and Joe Biden, and by Republicans John McCain and Susan Collins.
It reaffirms support for the 1998 Belfast Agreement as "the blueprint for lasting peace in Northern Ireland" and recalls that the parties to the agreement affirmed their "total and absolute commitment to exclusively democratic and peaceful means to achieve the goal of peace".
The resolution rejects the statement of DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley in May that the agreement "should be given a reasonable burial". Inclusive power-sharing based on the defining qualities of the agreement "is essential to the viability and success of the peace process", they said.
The senators called on the IRA "to immediately complete the process of decommissioning, cease to exist as a paramilitary organisation and end its involvement in any way in paramilitary and criminal activity".
Referring to the discussion under way within the IRA, "we all await a final, positive and decisive action".
The IRA is expected to make a statement in the coming weeks on its future role in the peace process. The resolution also calls on Sinn Féin "to work in good faith" with the Police Service of Northern Ireland and calls for justice in the case of Robert McCartney, "the Belfast citizen who was brutally murdered there in January".
In addition, it urges the DUP to share power with all the other parties, according to the democratic mandate of the Belfast Agreement, "and commit to work in good faith with all the institutions established under the agreement, including the Executive and the North-South Ministerial Council, to benefit all the people of Northern Ireland".
The senators also call on the British government "to permanently restore the democratic institutions of Northern Ireland and complete the process of demilitarisation in Northern Ireland and advance equality and human rights in Northern Ireland".
The resolution is similar in its basic demands to one issued by Mr Kennedy, Mr Collins and Mr Dodd to mark St Patrick's Day in March. The inclusion of Senator John McCain, a possible presidential candidate in 2008, confirms his new role as one of a small group of US senators publicly engaged in promoting the Northern Ireland peace process.