Ahern 'confident' over IRA statement

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said today he believed the IRA would issue a statement on its future within days.

With Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness preparing to brief senior United States government officials on the situation in Northern Ireland, Mr Ahern insisted the terror group had to commit to total decommissioning.

The Taoiseach said he was confident a ground-breaking move by the provisional movement was only days away.

“I think hopefully, hopefully, because I can’t be certain on this issue, because I don’t control the writing of these statements, but the Government’s position is very clear on it that I do genuinely believe that we are within days of seeing an enormous change in the situation,” he said.

IRA members have spent the last four months debating how to answer calls from Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams to abandon the armed struggle and embrace democracy.

And with a public statement from the IRA expected, possibly in the next 24 hours, Mr Ahern stressed the terror group had to address all the issues from arms, to training, to targeting.

“I have given you, I think, the issues that we want to see, the issues of decommissioning fully dealt with, we want to see the full range of arms and explosives and all of the military arms dealt with,” he said.

“We want to see criminality and all of the issues, the targeting, the procurement, the training, all these issues fully and completely ended.

“The only way that can be done is if the provisional IRA move and instruct their volunteers to end the campaign that has gone on for years, but we have to wait and see what happens.”

Sinn Féin’s representative to the US, Rita O’Hare, and Mid-Ulster MP Mr McGuinness will arrive in the US later today for a series of meetings in Washington and New York with President George Bush’s advisers on Northern Ireland.

Observers have billed the trip as significant, as in the past senior Sinn Féin figures have travelled to the US ahead of key moves by the provisional IRA such as the 1994 ceasefire and acts of decommissioning.

Mr McGuinness will also be briefing US officials and key figures in Irish-America.