Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's government have been involved in a series of talks with Sinn Fein recently and apparently expects an IRA response to Gerry Adams's pre-election statement in the next few weeks. Bertie Ahern today said "there must be no fudge, no ambiguity" from the IRA.

According to the Irish Independent (free registration required), there will be no more meetings between Bertie Ahern and provisional leader Gerry Adams until the IRA answers Dublin's questions about it's future direction. In the mean time, Ahern is said to be planning a meeting with the DUP to guage how they might respond to any IRA statement effectively giving up weapons and criminality.

Follow up:

Meanwhile SDLP deputy leader, South Belfast MP Al McDonnell said that the IRA must cease all it's activities, insisting "it is not a matter of satisfying the DUP's demands, but of living up to the Agreement."

For me this raises an important question. Assuming the P. O'Neill does utter the words we've all been waiting for, will this be seen as a vindication of the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process in general, or of the DUP's resolute demands that the IRA give up guns before their political wing be allowed into government?

I sense that the DUP will claim that any statement would be 100% down to their determination to stick to their guns. I don't buy this. At the same time though, while I'd like to be able to say it was solely down to Sinn Fein convincing republicans that through the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and co-operation with Unionists,we can all live as one big happy family and they don't need the IRA, this doesn't wash either. In reality it's a combination of both.

Witout the GFA and, I believe, the work put in by the Ulster Unionists/SDLP and others, the IRA would still see their guns and bombs as the best way of getting their message heard. At the same time though, without the recent tough stance taken by both main Unionist parties (probably largely creditable to the DUP though), I don't believe they would see any motivation for giving up their criminal activities and their weapons either.

Does this mean there's a gap in representation for the middle ground within Unionism? Surely there must be somewhere between what was, in hindsight, an overly trusting approach of David Trimble's UUP with Ian Paisley's 'No Surrender'/'Not an inch' brigade.

Besides all this is irrelevant if, as I suspect based on recent history, the IRA statement will be yet another ambiguous fudge designed primarily to save face, while giving the impression of compromise but really allowing them to make very little movement at all. Right now Ahern is saying "no fudge, no ambiguity," but I suspect that once the IRA statement comes out, fudge or not, the governments will welcome it, trumpeting praise for this historic step regardless of it's actual content (or lack thereof).

Pundits seem to think that if there's no response from the IRA in the next few weeks (ie before the marching season kicks off) then it's unlikely they're going to agree to give up their weapons, criminality and whatever else. According to the Irish Independent article (linked above) the "crucial date" for this response will be Drumcree Sunday (10th July).

Time will tell...