Mr Gerry Adams has indicated that Sinn Fein will use its influence to bring about IRA decommissioning, in line with the terms of the Belfast Agreement. But he has rejected the Ulster Unionist Party's insistence that Sinn Fein can take ministerial positions in an Assembly executive only after the IRA begins decommissioning.
In demanding that Sinn Fein be allowed speedily to take positions in the shadow Assembly executive, Mr Adams said the party would "fulfil their commitments in all respects".
This implies that Sinn Fein would influence the IRA to disarm, because Mr Adams has committed his party to the agreement, which says decommissioning should occur over a two-year period. It does not appear to specify when this would begin. The relevant paragraph says all participants must "confirm their intention to continue to work constructively and in good faith with the Independent Commission [on Decommissioning], and to use any influence they have to achieve the decommissioning of all paramilitary weapons within two years following endorsement in referendums North and South of the agreement and in the context of the implementation of the overall settlement".
However, a UUP Assembly member, Mr Reg Empey, yesterday said it was implicit in the terms of the Belfast Agreement that before Sinn Fein held such office disarmament must have begun. Mr Adams, in a statement headlined "No Executive - No Assembly", said the agreement set out a chronology of events to include setting up the executive, departmental structures, a fullyfunctional North-South Ministerial Council and a Civic Forum. He did not mention the British-Irish Council. "To raise decommissioning now as a precondition is a clear breach of the agreement. All parties are obliged to fulfil their commitments in all respects," he said.
