IRA announces end to armed campaign

DUBLIN - The Irish Republican army guerrilla group has formally announced an end to its armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland from 4pm (3am Friday NZ time).

The IRA said in a statement it would cease all armed activity and pursue its aims through politics - a crucial move to revive talks on a lasting political settlement in the violence-torn province. It said its units must "dump arms".

The statement, seen by Reuters, read in part:

"The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann (IRA) has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign.

"This will take effect from 4pm this afternoon. All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms. All volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means."

The IRA had been expected to outline plans for its future since April, when its political ally Sinn Fein called for the guerrillas to end armed struggle for a united Ireland. Crimes it was accused of fanned calls for the group to disband and sparked harsh censure of Sinn Fein from traditional supporters.

Earlier on Thursday, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adam had promised that the widely anticipated statement by the Catholic guerrilla group would "challenge" all parties to the Northern Ireland conflict.

But, speaking before the IRA statement became public, the province's main Protestant party, which favours continued union with Britain, said a deal on reviving a suspended local assembly was still a long way off.

"I am saying now the proof of the pudding is in the eating and digesting of it," said Ian Paisley, firebrand leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

"We've heard it all before. You can wrap it up anyway you like ... put a new bit of ribbon on the package but we want the action, the proof this is happening," he told BBC Television.

The pro-British DUP refuses to talk directly to Sinn Fein, still less sit in government with it, while the Catholic politicians maintain links to the paramilitary organisation.

The IRA arsenal, used to wage a 30-year campaign against British rule until a 1997 ceasefire, has long been the main stumbling block to securing a political deal. Criminality also became a major issue this year after a high-profile robbery and murder.

Earlier in the day, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern cut short a visit to the Galway Races to return to Dublin in anticipation of the statement. Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern returned from France.

Sinn Fein was to hold press conferences in Dublin and Washington and briefings in London and Brussels at the same time. The Irish and British governments were also expected to make a formal response.

Anticipating an IRA move, Britain released on Wednesday night a convicted bomber who was first let out under the 1998 Good Friday peace deal but re-arrested earlier this year.

Some 3600 people died during the three-decade-long "Troubles", half of them killed by the IRA.

Talks on reviving an assembly, set up under the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement and in which Catholics and Protestants together ran the province's affairs, broke down at the end of last year after Paisley insisted on photographic proof of the weapons being destroyed. The IRA refused such "humiliation".

It has allowed international monitors to witness three private acts of decommissioning but would not permit them to reveal any details about the weapons.

Long and winding road to Northern Irish settlement

1921: South declares free state. Civil war rages for two years. Northern Protestants remain loyal to Britain.

1937: Irish Free State -- 26 counties in south and west Ireland -- proclaims independence, not recognised by Britain until 12 years later.

1955-62: Sporadic attacks by the Catholic Irish Republican army against British in Northern Ireland and England.

1968: N Irish Catholics launch civil rights campaign.

1969: British army sent to Northern Ireland to quell riots and keep peace. Worst clashes in 50 years.

1971: Internment without trial of suspected guerrillas.

1972: British troops kill 13 Catholic protesters on "Bloody Sunday" in Londonderry.

1972: British government introduces direct rule.

1979: IRA steps up attacks on prominent Britons, killing Lord Mountbatten, cousin of Queen Elizabeth, among others.

1981: Ten IRA prisoners starve to death in hunger strike designed to secure political prisoner status.

1982: N Ireland assembly elected; boycotted by Catholics.

1983: IRA bomb at London Harrods store kills six.

1984: IRA bomb at British Conservative party conference kills five. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escapes injury.

1985: Anglo-Irish agreement gives Dublin government consultative voice in daily running of Northern Ireland.

1987: IRA kill 11 at Enniskillen war memorial ceremony.

1988: Three IRA members shot dead by SAS in Gibraltar.

1994: IRA announces ceasefire, matched by pro-British "Loyalist" guerrillas. British officials hold first open meeting with Sinn Fein in more than 70 years.

1995: Britain ends 23-year ban on ministerial talks with Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein breaks off exploratory talks.

1996: IRA ends ceasefire, setting off bomb in London's Docklands district, killing two people. Multi-party talks on the future of Northern Ireland begin; Sinn Fein is excluded.

1997: Adams and chief negotiator Martin McGuinness win seats in British parliament but decline to take them up. IRA announces "unequivocal" ceasefire. Two Protestant parties quit talks in protest at lack of IRA commitment to hand in its arms.

1998: "Good Friday" peace deal follows marathon talks to end conflict and devolve rule. Elections to a new Northern Ireland assembly held; Protestant Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader David Trimble elected First Minister designate.

-- Car bomb in Omagh, Northern Ireland, kills 29 in worst single attack in nearly 30 years of violence. Real IRA splinter group claims responsibility.

1999: Province gets own government in which Catholics and Protestants share power, ending 27 years of London rule.

2000: Britain suspends -- then restores -- assembly over IRA disarmament.

2001: Trimble resigns over the IRA's failure to disarm -- then is re-elected when IRA says it puts some arms beyond use.

2002: Sinn Fein offices raided by police probing alleged IRA spy ring. Britain suspends the assembly.

2003: Assembly elections boost hardliners on both sides.

2004: Blair and Ahern open summit at Leeds Castle, Kent, aimed at reaching a deal. IRA guerrillas later say they will never be "humiliated" by the photographing of their final acts of disarmament, the last sticking point in the drive for a political settlement.

2005: Trimble resigns as leader of the moderate Protestant Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) after poor results in Britain's election. Hardline Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Ian Paisley surges ahead.

-- IRA pledges to dump arms, commits to political solution in Northern Ireland.

- REUTERS