The loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association, also known as the Ulster Freedom Fighters, has come out in support of the Belfast Agreement and has called for a Yes vote in the Northern Ireland referendum.
The announcement came on the eve of the annual conference of the organisation's political wing, the Ulster Democratic Party, whose leader Mr Gary McMichael is due to make a strong call to support the agreement.
In a statement, the UDA-UFF said it was satisfied Northern Ireland's place in the United Kingdom was secure under the agreement and that 30 years of IRA violence and attempts to negotiate a united Ireland had failed. It urged Sinn Fein and the IRA to back the agreement if they were interested in democracy.
The statement said people should not be misled by those who "for petty personal and political reasons would seek to drag our society back to conflict. It was not the Democratic Unionists or the UK Unionists who had "been carried in coffins to the graveyards or have filled the prisons throughout the past 30 years".
Meanwhile, the Ulster Unionist Party, the SDLP and Alliance sharply criticised anti-agreement campaigners who staged a rally in the Ulster Hall, Belfast, this week.
Although three Ulster Unionist MPs - Mr Roy Beggs, Mr Willie Ross and Mr Willie Thompson - took part in the rally, an official UUP statement dismissed the event as "pure moonshine". The statement said "no credible alternative" had been offered at the rally. "How is the Union to be retained when it is in the hands of the Northern Ireland Office? "Can they guarantee that in the event of a No vote, the NIO will not release prisoners? Can they guarantee that there will not be a commission into the police? Can they guarantee that there will be decommissioning? By pursuing this policy, the No campaigners will ensure that we have all the negative aspects of the agreement imposed with none of the major constitutional benefits coming to us, such as consent, removal of Articles 2 and 3 and the closure of Maryfield," the statement said.
Mr Sean Farren of the SDLP said the No campaign had nothing to offer. "Mr Paisley has said No so frequently that he now cannot bring himself to make any other response." The fears and suspicions the No campaign was trying to whip up were groundless. "There is going to be no takeover of the new Assembly or of its administration by any side." There were safeguards for unionists as well as nationalists. Mr Seamus Close of the Alliance Party described the leaders of the No campaign as "empty vessels". "Two weeks after the historic and momentous Good Friday Agreement, those who abdicated their responsibilities and left the talks table have been found wanting. Their strident voices are crying in the political wilderness and their desperation as evidenced by the statements at the rally is becoming clearer by the hour.
"Like empty vessels they may well be making the most noise, but they obviously don't have a constructive or positive thought in their collective heads."