The Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble has called on republicans to signalthey are planning to end all involvement in paramilitary activity.
He told the Ulster Unionists annual conference in Armagh: "Neither thegovernment's formula, nor ours, say that everything must be done first."Rather both envisage a sense that paramilitarism is coming to an end soon.
"And perhaps the most important aspect of that sense is an acknowledgement byrepublicans that the Belfast Agreement is a settlement - that it provides thefull and final closure of the conflict.
As peace process negotiations with Sinn Féin enter a critical phase, MrTrimble argued an end to all paramilitary activity was as important to peopleliving in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland, like Andersonstown and theCreggan, as it was to cities like Armagh or the loyalists in Tandragee.
On the issue of policing and justice, he signalled to republicans his partywanted to see the transfer of powers from Westminster to Stormont in thelifetime of the next Assembly. But he insisted it could not be rushed.
The Upper Bann MP said confidence in republicanism would be crucial if thesepowers were to be transferred.
"Support for policing and participation on the Policing Board which are partof the working out of these acts would further build the necessary confidence,"the former Stormont First Minister said.
"The Assembly could then address the issue of how it would dischargeresponsibility for policing and the detailed steps by which that responsibilitywould be transferred.
"But I have to underline that it is simply absurd for people to have anyresponsibility for policing if they are linked to a private army!
"So, much as we would like to see it we cannot support the devolution ofpolicing until Sinn Fein has resolved to support the police and the IRA hastaken the inevitable step, consequent on such support, to wind up or transmutetheir organisation into something entirely peaceful and democratic.
"So any timescale for devolution is a timescale for these other matters."