The RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, has rejected accusations by the Rev Ian Paisley that his decision to dismantle a number of British military bases in Northern Ireland was taken for political reasons. He also described Saturday's IRA statement as "significant".
Sir Ronnie denied a claim by the DUP leader that he was acting under pressure from the British government when he announced the security scaledown on Monday evening. "I will not be making any adjustments for political reasons. I never have and I never will." He said the decision to demolish security bases in Cookstown and Derry, to vacate observation posts in west and north Belfast, and to dismantle an observation tower in Crossmaglen and a checkpoint structure near Newry was based on an assessment of the current security threat.
He described as significant the IRA's offer to put its arms verifiably beyond use. "It goes further than anything they have ever said publicly before, but we don't act on the basis of words. We act on the basis of an assessment of terrorist capability and terrorist intention," he said.
"We have no doubt whatever that, following that assessment, the ultimate summation of the overall level of threat is now reduced as a result of last weekend's events."
Sir Ronnie said the force was waiting to see what would unfold in relation to the controversy about whether to incorporate the RUC title or symbols into the new policing service. While Ulster Unionists were demanding concessions on Patten as a price of supporting the Hillsborough proposals, Sir Ronnie told BBC Radio Ulster the force did not want to be associated with any one political party.
Mr David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party, which is linked to the UVF, said yesterday that organisation would respond to the IRA offer with some form of "confidence-building measure", but in its own time.
The UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, in a speech at a business function in Belfast, said he very much hoped "that it will be possible to return government in Northern Ireland to those elected by the people here. I hold the simple view that those with a direct interest in the future success of Northern Ireland are most likely to work hard to realise that success."
While DUP politicians predictably were angered, pro-agreement UUP politicians were generally sanguine about the scaledown of the British army presence in the North. However, Ulster Unionist MLA Mr Billy Armstrong said those changes were "very premature".
The Sinn Fein West Belfast MLA, Ms Bairbre de Brun, warned UUP members they were making an "enormous mistake" in their insistence that the Patten proposals on police reform be modified. "Since partition, the RUC has been the force of unionism and specifically the UUP. This is one of the core difficulties that nationalists and republicans have with the force.
"Any new policing service cannot be aligned to any political party," she added.
Mr Gerry Kelly, the Sinn Fein MLA for North Belfast, asked why the UDA had so far failed to respond positively to Saturday's IRA statement: was its apparent unwillingness to allow scrutiny of its arms dumps because it would expose "collusion between loyalist death squads and British military forces?".
