Unionists have reacted with scorn to the IRA's withdrawal of proposals to put weapons completely and verifiably beyond use, describing them as a "five-day wonder" aimed at wrong-footing unionists.
The Ulster Unionist deputy leader, Lord Kilclooney (formerly Mr John Taylor) said the IRA move confirmed that his party could not be expected to "tolerate government from those with terrorist links".
"The IRA did not agree to put their arms beyond use. What they agreed was how it would be done if they ever agreed that it should be done," he said. The arrest of three suspected Provisional IRA men in Colombia was a worrying development. "This shows you what the IRA are up to," he added.
The Ulster Unionist MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson insisted the IRA statement was evidence that its offer on weapons was nothing more than a tactical ploy to catch unionists off guard.
"The fact that they have so hastily withdrawn the offer indicates no intention, at this stage, to make serious movement on decommissioning," he said. Taken together with the arrests in Colombia, it indicated the IRA was still wedded to the theology of revolutionary terrorism and had not begun the transition to peace and democracy, Mr Donaldson said.
Mr Michael McGimpsey, of the Ulster Unionists, described the move as "short-term manoeuvring" and a "cynical publicity stunt" which flew in the face of how politics was conducted among democrats.
"Veterans of this process know that once an agreement like this is made it is always on the negotiating table," Mr McGimpsey said. He also dismissed the IRA's claim that his party had rejected the republican proposal, saying: "We welcomed it as significant but underlined that it did not constitute a start to actually putting weapons beyond use."
Mr McGimpsey said the IRA's alleged involvement with the Marxist FARC grouping in Colombia had to be of "grave concern to the White House".
"The arrests of three Provisional IRA suspects in Colombia only serves to underline the fact that the IRA continues to train in terrorist tactics and the use of weapons. These are not the activities of an organisation committed to a peace process," he said.
Another Ulster Unionist MP, the Rev Martin Smyth, confirmed that he had written to the Northern Secretary about the events in Colombia. "Combined with the IRA's statement we can now all see that the IRA has had no real commitment to any process except one which allows them to extract concessions while giving nothing in return," he said.
The DUP's deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, called on the British government to withdraw any concessions it had offered on policing and demilitarisation. Mr Ian Paisley jnr described the IRA statement as "entirely predictable".
"The [British] government will now bend over backwards to appease the IRA with the intention of restoring this offer. In the meantime, numerous concessions will have to be paid over to the IRA just to get back to this position," Mr Paisley said.
Mr David Ervine, of the Progressive Unionist Party, which has links to the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force, accused the IRA of "hypocrisy" over its involvement with Colombian drug-dealers in the face of drug-related punishment attacks in republican areas by a group calling itself Direct Action Against Drugs, widely believed to be a front for the Provisional IRA.
Asked if the UVF's go-between with the decommissioning body, Mr Billy Hutchinson, would now also break off contact with the commission, Mr Ervine said he could not answer that question but was "deeply sorry" that that debate would inevitably now take place within the loyalist organisation.