Paisley insistent on IRA decommissioning transparency

The DUP leader, Rev Ian Paisley, said this morning he has learned the IRA has now refused to carry out any act of decommissioning.

Speaking in Belfast after a meeting with General John de Chastelain of the International Independent Commission on Decommissioning, Dr Paisley said he has been left in no doubt that the IRA would not fulfil their obligations to destroy their arsenal.

The IRA last night confirmed in a brief, one line statement that it has been in talks with General de Chastelain. But Dr Paisley said his party was not satisfied with the IRA's pledges to the general. "Not only photographs, but nothing was discussed or settled about the independent witnesses, inventory and all the things that we were interested in," Dr Paisley said.

"The situation is this: that the IRA are dead set on keeping their arms and going on with IRA/Sinn Féin's two-fold policy of democracy and terrorism, " he added.

"They're now selling the line [it's one photograph]. It's not one photograph - it's a complete, clear survey in photographs of all that they do," he said.

The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, added that the latest peace talks had not collapsed because the DUP had tried to "humiliate" the IRA by demanding a photograph of decommissioning, as the Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams claimed.

"It was nothing to do with humiliation, nothing to do elections," he said. "It was all about satisfying the people of Northern Ireland in a transparent and visible way that the guns had gone and it was a new chapter for Ulster."

Dr Paisley called on the two governments to cut Sinn Féin out of the peace negotiations. "The British government and the Irish government have a responsibility: Are they going to be held to ransom by the guns of the IRA?" he asked. "Or are they going to move on now and say (to the IRA) you have chosen not to be part of this?"

The Tánaiste insisted in the Dáil this morning that the issue of photographs demanded by the DUP and rejected by the IRA was not the only issue that had caused the latest peace deal to collapse.

"It would be wrong of anyone to assume that this was just about photographs, that that was the only outstanding issue," Ms Mary Harney said. "It would also be important to acknowledge that the Irish Government did support others in their request to have photographs published."

Ms Harney added that many other photographs and videos of atrocities had been used for propaganda purposes. "Humiliation works both ways," she said.