Race against time to save peace process

There are reports that an IRA army convention is being held today, at the end of which an announcement on decommissioning is expected.

The meeting is believed to be taking place somewhere in Co Louth.

The seven-member IRA army council is believed to have voted already in favour of decommissioning. A convention of up to 40 delegates would have to vote to ratify that decision.

The next few days are critical if the peace process is to be rescued following the decision of Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble to pull his ministers out of the Stormont Executive because of the failure of the IRA to begin disarming.

There are just five days until the resignation of the ministers becomes effective unless there is a start to decommissioning.

If there is no decommissioning, the Government will be forced to either suspend the executive for a fourth time - or call new elections to the Stormont Assembly.

All the signs are now that the IRA is ready to make the decommissioning move which some republicans have called a bigger step than calling their ceasefire.

But Sinn Fein are making it clear they don’t see the IRA acting on weapons as an issue in isolation.

Martin McGuinness, the Education Minister at Stormont, said yesterday it was ‘‘only one aspect of the equation’’.

The security forces who have been monitoring the situation believe the IRA army council will only decide to move when it has the most to gain politically be that within the coming days or later.

Mr McGuinness admitted the peace process was in a ‘‘terrible crisis’’.

But he said it was his ‘‘fervent hope’’ that the frantic efforts being made behind the scenes ‘‘can bring about a situation where the Good Friday Agreement is implemented in full at long last’’.

The McGuinness assessment is that it ‘‘remains to be seen’’ if there would be success in pulling everything together.

But he added: ‘‘I believe if there is enough wisdom, if there is enough courage and if there is the political will to overcome the problems, they can be overcome.’’

He said he had a sense that at long last people were ‘‘seized with the urgency of the situation and recognise we are in a terrible crisis with the imminent collapse of everything we have worked for over the past decade or so’’.