IRA Insists It Never Agreed to Hand Over Weapons

Irish Republican Army commanders said Saturday that British and Protestant demands will not influence whether they disarm--and the outlawed group emphasized that it had never pledged to give up its weapons.

The IRA’s statement left the centerpiece of Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday peace accord, the Protestant-Roman Catholic government, in peril.

The British government says it intends to strip the 9-week-old coalition Cabinet of its powers Friday if the IRA doesn’t promise to disarm. The IRA’s response Saturday fell far short of that, mixing optimistic-sounding rhetoric with a determination to resist political pressure.

In its statement, the IRA emphasized its willingness to “support efforts to secure the resolution of the arms issue.” But it didn’t directly say whether it would begin scrapping its weapons.

The IRA said it “has never entered into any agreement, undertaking or understanding at any time with anyone on any aspect of decommissioning. We have not broken our commitment or betrayed anyone.”

The statement came as Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party, met with David Trimble, who heads Northern Ireland’s major Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, and holds the top post in the four-party Cabinet.

The province’s power-sharing Cabinet was formed in December after a Sinn Fein-Ulster Unionist deal brokered by U.S. mediator George J. Mitchell. The Ulster Unionists agreed to form a Cabinet with Sinn Fein. But in exchange, the Ulster Unionists expected the IRA to begin disarming in January.

The IRA then opened discussions with the province’s long-stymied disarmament commission. But the panel reported Jan. 31 that its talks with IRA leaders had produced no concrete gains, triggering an Ulster Unionist threat to withdraw from the Cabinet.