The IRA is today set to declare its willingness to decommission its weapons arsenal and end all paramilitary actions, in a move that could breathe new life into the Northern Ireland peace process.
The publication of the statement was guaranteed late last night following the decision by Northern Ireland Secretary of State Peter Hain to release the Shankill Road bomber, Seán Kelly.
Mr Kelly, who had been released under the terms of the Belfast Agreement, was sent back to jail last month by Mr Hain after he accepted intelligence reports that he had become reinvolved in paramilitary activity.
The release of Mr Kelly, who has been granted temporary release to appeal his recommittal to the sentence review board, had been a key demand of Sinn Féin during recent talks with Dublin and London.
The Democratic Unionist Party reacted with fury last night. Party leader the Rev Ian Paisley is expected to meet Mr Hain in London today, and possibly British prime minister Tony Blair, to protest about the decision which it says is politically motivated.
Today's IRA declaration, expected early today, will be welcomed by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Mr Blair, though they are expected to exercise some caution.
The publication of the long-awaited statement should coincide with a Washington meeting between US President George Bush's Northern Ireland envoy, Mitchell Reiss and Sinn Féin chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness.
Emphasising that he could not be certain, Mr Ahern, in Galway, said: "I do genuinely believe that we are within days of seeing an enormous change in the situation."
Once the statement is released, the IRA will begin to destroy its arsenal over the next month or so, supervised by the International Independent Commission on Decommissioning, led by Gen John De Chastelain. However, the IRA is not expected today to accept that the decommissioning should be photographed - one of the two issues which brought down the last round of talks on December 8th last year.
Now the statement is expected to declare that the IRA and the IICD will decide on the final verification arrangements in the weeks ahead, though it is assumed that a deal on this has already been done.
Although both governments remained tight-lipped last night, it is understood both are "reasonably hopeful" that the IRA will go far enough on this occasion.
Highly placed sources yesterday insisted the Taoiseach and senior ministers had not seen the final IRA text up to yesterday afternoon, though it is believed that they will have done so before publication.
Mr Ahern said the IRA had to address all issues from arms, to training, to recruitment, to targeting if the statement was to succeed.
"I have given you, I think, the issues that we want to see, the issues of decommissioning fully dealt with, we want to see the full range of arms and explosives and all of the military arms dealt with," he told RTÉ News. "We want to see criminality and all of the issues, the targeting, the procurement, the training, all these issues fully and completely ended."
Speaking early this morning, after arriving in Philadelphia, Mr McGuinness said: "There's a lot of speculation. We haven't speculated. We have been patient and working hard to compel the Irish peace process forward. There will be huge challenges and huge opportunities lying ahead."
DUP deputy leader, East Belfast MP Peter Robinson, said the DUP would not accept Sinn Féin as "a legitimate political party" or "fit for government" until the IRA decommissioned. He said "decommissioning alone would not be enough" since the IRA must also stop "all paramilitary operations" and shut down "the IRA's criminal empire".
Once decommissioning is completed, the Independent Monitoring Commission will produce two reports spread several months apart to verify that the IRA has ended all actions.