Unionists not surprised by IRA statement

"Unsurprising" was the reaction amongst unionism today to the news that the IRA had withdrawn from talks with the International Independent Commission on Decommissioning (IICD).

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble said the IRA "have repeatedly broken their promises to the people of Northern Ireland" and that it had been obvious for months that they had not been making progress on decommissioning

"This move further vindicates our decision to force the suspension of the institutions. It underlines what the republican movement has to do," he added.

East Londonderry MP Gregory Campbell also poured contempt on the latest decommissioning statement from the IRA. He said: "The announcement that the IRA has broken off contact with the decommissioning body is but a tactical move in order to extract more concessions from the government.

"It is clear that the IRA use decommissioning as little more than a bargaining chip or stunt designed to divert attention from the rest of their terrorist activities. The IRA’s statement is in stark contrast to the words of the ‘born again’ democrat Martin McGuinness, the Unionist community has at last woken up to the cosmetic exercises of Sinn Fein/IRA."

However, Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness blamed the British government for the current impasse. He said: "In Tony Blair's recent speech he acknowledged that this government has yet to implement the Good Friday Agreement. The political institutions are in suspension. That is the political context in which this statement has come.

"The (IRA) statement speaks for itself and it is not the job of Sinn Féin to interpret it.

"But our focus remains the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. It is the task of political leaders to move the process on and get the political institutions back up and running."

Elsewhere, Church of Ireland bishop of Derry and Raphoe, the Rt Rev Ken Good, has urged all paramilitary groups to disband during a speech to the Synod of the Diocese of Derry and Raphoe.

Rev Good said that Northern Ireland had been beset by "a trust-deficit for a very long time". In the wake of the assembly suspension, the scale of mistrust within the peace process, he said, "has now put in jeopardy the survival of the very institutions that were designed to build trust".

Rev Good then made a direct appeal to paramilitary leaders, both loyalist and republican, to reject violence.

He said the day of the paramilitary threat, patent or shadowy, which should never have been there in the first place, must be declared by its leadership to be well and truly over.

(MB)