Northern Ireland awaits IRA arms disposal report

Irish paramilitaries have given up the weapons that sustained their 30-year campaign, international monitors are expected to say on Monday.

However, agreement on restoring local government, seen as key to long-term stability in the province, is still likely to be months if not years away, given the deep mistrust of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) among the main pro-British political parties.

A monitoring body that oversees disarmament is expected to notify London and Dublin that IRA arms have been put beyond use, two months after the paramilitaries pledged to end a bloody 30-year campaign against British rule in the province.

The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning will deliver a report in Belfast on the disposal of what is believed to be one of Europe's largest paramilitary arsenals.

?I am confident that (Monday) will bring the final chapter on the issue of IRA arms,? Martin McGuinness, chief negotiator of the IRA?s political ally Sinn Fein said late on Sunday.

?I believe that Ireland stands on the cusp of a truly historic advance.?

But the disarmament move, believed to have been witnessed by church officials, may not be enough to push the province?s main pro-British party towards agreement any time soon on sharing power with nationalists in a Belfast-based assembly.

Before July the IRA had allowed international monitors to witness three separate acts of arms ?decommissioning? but lack of detail meant the moves fell on stony ground with opponents.

Talks on reviving the assembly, the short-lived local government in which Protestants and Roman Catholics together ran the province?s affairs, are not expected to begin in earnest until after a fuller report into IRA activity in January.

In the short term, the move could help to defuse tensions in the province after fierce rioting earlier this month by pro-British Protestants who are worried they are being abandoned by the government.