IRA to spell out pledges

THE IRA has confirmed it will release the statement setting out peace pledges that it gave to the British and Irish Governments last month.

With Tony Blair halting the Assembly elections because he said republicans had not given clear assurances of an end to all violence, the Provisionals vowed to reveal what they had put on the table.

Once rank-and-file activists had been briefed on its contents, it will be made public, the paramilitary organisation disclosed in an announcement on Saturday night. It said: “The IRA leadership has authorised the release of their statement that was given to the two governments on April 13. First and foremost, the statement must be shown to all IRA volunteers.

“Upon completion of this process, the statement will be released to the public.”

The Peace Process was plunged into new crisis when Mr Blair postponed the May 29 poll to the power-sharing Assembly.

Despite two attempts by Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams to stress the IRA posed no threat to the Good Friday Agreement, Downing Street insisted it needed more guarantees that all paramilitary activity would end for good. Specific pledges to stop weapons purchasing, intelligence-gathering, targeting and punishment attacks were not included in the proposals issued to London and Dublin by the IRA.

With David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists refusing to go back into the devolved institutions brought down last October amid allegations of republican spying, Mr Blair put the elections on hold for a second time until the autumn.

Sinn Féin leaders and Ian Paisley’s anti-Agreement Democratic Unionists were both left seething by the postponement, claiming it had been stopped to save Mr Trimble from heavy losses. The joint British-Irish declaration, scheduled to form part of a deal with the IRA statement, has now been published in a bid to put more pressure on the IRA.

Commitments to slash troop levels in the North by nearly 10,000 to a permanent garrison of just 5,000, pull down military watchtowers in Belfast and south Armagh and grant a virtual amnesty to on-the-run paramilitary prisoners are included in that document.

The package depends on the IRA keeping its side of the bargain. Mr Adams has insisted republicans have bent over backwards to prove their commitment to peace and accused the governments of casting the North back to a situation similar to the Civil Rights movement at the start of the Troubles.`

Meanwhile, thousands gathered in Belfast and Derry for the annual hunger strikers commemoration rallies.