The Irish Republican Army, which for decades waged a campaign of violence against British military and police in Northern Ireland, has shed its paramilitary capabilities, according to a report by the independent body monitoring the IRA's disarmament.

Irish public broadcaster RTE writes that in its latest report, the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) found that the IRA is "committed to following a political path."

The IMC says that three years ago the Provisional IRA was the most sophisticated and well-equipped of the paramilitary groups, but is now firmly set on a political strategy eschewing terrorism and other forms of crime. In this process, it says, there has been a loss of paramilitary capability.

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The Commission remains of the view that the Provisional IRA's leadership has committed itself to following the political path.

It says it does not believe the PIRA is now engaged in terrorism, undertaking terrorist type training, recruiting. It has no evidence of the organisation targeting procurement or engineering activity.

RTE writes that the IMC also found the IRA "has disbanded military structures responsible for procurement, engineering and training and has stood down volunteers and stopped allowances," while also maintaining a "firm stance" against acts of criminality by its members.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair heralded the decision, calling it a "unique opportunity," reports the Daily Telegraph of London.

"Sinn Féin and the IRA are following the political path and the commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means," Mr Blair said. "The IRA's campaign is over. The door is now open to a final settlement, which is why the talks next week in Scotland are going to be so important."

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said: "It shows there has been a historic, seismic and irreversible change in the IRA."

The BBC reports that the Irish prime minister, Bertie Ahern, welcomed the report's "positive and clear-cut" findings as well, calling them of "the utmost importance and significance," while US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland Mitchell Reiss also spoke well of the findings, writes Washington File, a US State Department news agency.

Ambassador Reiss said the Bush administration is "particularly heartened by the Commission's conclusions that the IRA 'is now firmly set on a political strategy, eschewing terrorism and other forms of crime.' This report, combined with previous Commission findings, confirms that the IRA has undertaken to do what it said it would," he said.

He also noted that the leadership of the IRA's political wing, Sinn Féin, has "accepted the need for engagement in policing and wishes to achieve it," and expressed hope that "this can be accomplished as soon as possible."

The Associated Press reports that Ian Paisley, hardline Protestant leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), "welcomed the report for what he called signs that the IRA "is progressively abandoning its terrorist structures," but "he emphasized his Democratic Unionist Party would not share power until Sinn Féin, the IRA-linked party that represents most Catholics in the British territory, accepts the authority of Northern Ireland's police force, the last major obstacle in a 13-year-old peace process.

In an editorial, the Daily Telegraph writes that the IMC's findings are only "of marginal interest," since the IMC admits that the IRA is still active in criminal, if not strictly paramilitary, activities.

The IRA remains engaged heavily in criminality, thanks to its mostly unmentioned involvement in the Province's drugs trade. We have only the Provos' word for it that the decommissioned arms that they have shown inspectors represent anything other than the tip of a lethal iceberg.

Within the last two years, while allegedly at peace, its thugs murdered Robert McCartney in a Belfast pub, mounted a £26 million bank robbery, and killed self-confessed British spy Denis Donaldson. To say these people have rejected criminality is wishful thinking of an extreme order.

In a commentary for the Guardian, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir also dismisses the IMC's report as unremarkable, but for a completely different reason: The report "confirming the IRA has gone out of the war business, is totally irrelevant since the two governments and all the parties ... already know that."

Mr. Muilleoir writes that what is preventing acceptance of Sinn Féin into a new Northern Ireland government is the resistance of Mr. Paisley and the DUP.

The DUP fears power-sharing and the Good Friday agreement - in fact one of its senior members announced last week it would use the upcoming talks in Scotland to demand fundamental changes to the structure of the peace deal - because it can't handle the truth that the days of unionist one-party rule are finished.

In an analysis for The Times of London, David Sharrock agrees that Mr. Paisley is extremely hesitant to enter a government with Sinn Féin, but notes that doing so could also prove Paisley's "greatest political triumph," as it would allow Paisley, who once was considered a fringe extremist in Northern Irish politics, to be named Northern Ireland's First Minister.

The Times also reports that while "the Rev Paisley said that it showed that his party's hardline stance was delivering the IRA's abandonment of its terrorist structures, he gave no indication that he would soon reach an agreement to share power with Sinn Fein."

Regardless of Paisley's willingness to cut a deal with archrival Sinn Féin to restart the government at Stormont, the Irish and British governments are working to realize just such an event in meetings with the DUP and Sinn Féin, reports The Irish Times.

Mr Ahern and Mr Blair when they meet the parties over Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are due to outline the areas where they believe agreement has been achieved and obstacles yet to be overcome. These chiefly are convincing the DUP to share power with Sinn Féin and persuading Sinn Féin to sign up to policing.

One proposal that is being seriously considered is that the parties would sign up to a "contingency" deal by November 24th whereby the DUP would agree to share power at a specified date after the deadline, possibly into early next year, according to senior London sources.

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