IRA Confirms Arms Depots Reinspected

The Irish Republican Army announced that international inspectors had revisited a few of the outlawed group’s secret arms bunkers and had confirmed that no weapons had been moved. The announcement was timed to coincide with British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s arrival in Belfast, the provincial capital, on a mission to bolster Protestant leader David Trimble and shore up Northern Ireland’s peace process. Blair’s talks at the headquarters of the province’s fledgling Roman Catholic-Protestant government came two days before members of Trimble’s Ulster Unionist Party are expected to vote on toughening their power-sharing policy.