IRA says it has begun to 'decommission' arms

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) -- The Irish Republican Army announced Tuesday that it has begun to disarm for the first time, saying it wants to prevent the collapse of the peace process, long threatened by the impasse over IRA weapons.

There was no immediate word on the number of weapons being put out of use or the method. The IRA said only it had "implemented the scheme" accepted by an international disarmament commission in August, the details of which were never made public.

The announcement came one day after Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and his deputy, Martin McGuinness, urged their allies in the IRA to make good on their long-delayed promises to put their weapons "beyond use."

"Our motivation is clear. This unprecedented move is to save the peace process and to persuade others of our genuine intentions," the IRA statement said.

"The political process is now on the point of collapse. Such a collapse would certainly, and eventually, put the overall peace process in jeopardy," it said.

The IRA pledged in May 2000 to put its weapons "beyond use," a euphemism for disarmament. But its failure to fulfill the promise has constantly angered Protestants -- to the point that now the impasse threatened to bring down the Protestant-Catholic government created under Northern Ireland's Good Friday peace agreement of 1998.

Protestant politicians of the Ulster Unionist Party had resigned from the government, setting a Thursday deadline to find an agreement or again shut down the government.

The Ulster Unionists have twice agreed to join administrations including the militant Catholics of Sinn Fein, on condition that IRA disarmament followed.

Sinn Fein and the IRA have previously linked progress on disarmament to their insistence on radical reform of the police and a sharp reduction in the British military presence in Northern Ireland.

Adams on Monday appeared to drop the linkage but said "a positive IRA move must be responded to with generosity and vision."

Disarming is an emotional issue for IRA supporters, and Sinn Fein has been cautious about any move which might lead to further splits in the movement -- and more recruits to splinter outfits such as the so-called Real IRA, which committed the worst single atrocity in Northern Ireland's 30-year conflict by killing 29 people in Omagh on Aug. 15, 1998.