"We do not believe that the IRA is now engaged in terrorism." This weighty judgment in the latest six-monthly report from the Independent Monitoring Commission on paramilitary violence yesterday sets the scene for final efforts by the two governments to secure a power-sharing deal before their November 24th deadline.
It is a very positive report, and a thorough one, covering IRA training, recruitment, targeting, procurement and engineering. Residual involvement in criminality is the only area of activity it finds still extant. This remarkable state of affairs shows there is real potential to hope that a breakthrough can be made if political leadership and will are shown by the major parties over the next seven weeks.
Reactions to the report yesterday bear this out. Both governments used superlatives to describe it. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said it is of the "utmost significance", signalling that it changes the situation radically for the better. Prime minister Tony Blair said "the IRA's campaign is over. The door is now open for a final settlement".
Dermot Ahern insisted November 24th is a real deadline, as did Peter Hain, who spoke of a "historic, seismic, irreversible" pattern of change in Northern Ireland's politics. He welcomed the Democratic Unionist Party's qualifiedly positive attitude to the report, in which credit was claimed for that party's firmness over the last three years. While it is natural for political leaders to talk up the opportunities for a settlement, on this occasion they undoubtedly have good reason to do so.
The parties are to meet next week in Scotland. The agenda being set out by the governments concentrates on two central elements: Sinn Féin's attitude to policing and the DUP's willingness to share executive power with Sinn Féin.
It is hoped to make progress on linking them in such a way that by November 24th a political deal would be reached contingent on Sinn Féin securing agreement from its members to participate in the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the DUP members agreeing to a powersharing Executive.
This would be the essential bare bones of an agreement. It would be fleshed out by parallel bargains on the potential timing of a transfer of political control over policing from Westminster to the new Executive, by agreed changes to the Belfast Agreement on how the executive is elected, and by credible commitments to the rule of law. There is ample time to copperfasten these details in coming weeks, such that the basic framework can be put in place by November 24th.
The parties should be fully aware that it is not only the patience of both governments which is running out if political will and leadership are lacking. The general public in Northern Ireland is quite disenchanted by the endless bickering and prevarication between the political parties. If they fail to reach agreement there will be little public sympathy for them.