The handing over of illegal weapons by paramilitaries during the Northern talks would be an unprecedented event in Ireland and abroad, the head of the panel appointed to oversee decommissioning said yesterday. Gen de Chastelain, a Canadian, chairs the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, the three-man panel set up by the British and Irish governments to handle the destruction or handover of paramilitary weapons. The general, along with BrigGen Tauno Nierminen from Finland and a US diplomat, Donald Johnson, was in Dublin to meet Government officials and senior gardai to discuss how the group will go about its work.
The Commission hopes that both republican and loyalist paramilitaries can be persuaded to start handing over or destroying weapons during the talks, as a trust-building measure.
He said the details of how decommissioning might proceed had yet to be worked out, but the Commission's initial priority was to meet groups to discuss the principles involved. The two governments have guaranteed that the Commission will be allowed to pursue its work independently, and have passed legislation that allows it to meet paramilitary groups or their representatives and make arrangements about arms, without fear of security force interference or prosecution.