THE Provisional IRA is to destroy its deadly arsenal within two months, after it announced yesterday that it was ending its 35-year campaign of violence.

Tony Blair said that July 28 could become the day when peace replaced war and politics replaced terror. The Rev Ian Paisley, the Democratic Unionist leader, said that the IRA would be judged “over the next months and years on its behaviour and activity”.

In a move that was followed by choreographed welcomes in Belfast, London, Dublin and Washington, the IRA called an end to its “armed campaign” at 4pm yesterday.

It told its units to dump their weapons, instructed volunteers to pursue objectives through democratic and peaceful means, and told them that they must engage in “no other activities whatever”.

The latter order, insisted on by both British and Irish Governments, was taken by Mr Blair as a denunciation of all criminal and paramilitary behaviour, including targeting and intelligence gathering.

The end of criminal activity will be tested by a special report by the Independent Monitoring Commission next January.

But the destruction of the IRA’s still significant weapons stocks could be verified by the independent decommissioning body by the end of September, The Times was told last night.

The body has indicated privately to the Governments that the job will take several weeks but that it wants to do it as quickly as possible, informed sources said.

The irony that this move should come in the middle of London’s worst terrorist threat since IRA activity was at its height was not lost on ministers yesterday. It was also recognised that the IRA had chosen its time for maximum impact.

Mr Blair called the decision a “step of unprecedented magnitude in the recent history of Northern Ireland”. He said that if the IRA fulfilled its promise and disarmament were verified “proper devolved democratic government should be restored to Northern Ireland”.

“This may be the day when finally after all the false dawns and dashed hope, peace replaces war, politics replaces terror on the island of Ireland,” he said.

Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, called the decision courageous and said that history would not be kind to governments that played politics with it. “There is a time to resist, to stand up and to confront the enemy by arms if necessary. In other words there is a time for war. There is also a time to engage, to reach out and put war behind us,” he said.

Mr Blair was particularly pleased with Mr Paisley’s response, believing that it would lead to a restoration of devolved government if the IRA proved true to its word.

A source close to the Prime Minister said: “This was a unilateral statement by the IRA . . . This gives everyone time to judge the IRA and Sinn Fein by what happens. There is confidence that this time it will happen.”

The Prime Minister said that decommissioning must happen as soon as possible and be verified. “(The statement) creates the circumstances in which the institutions can be revived. Unionism will want to know that these circumstances are permanent and verified,” he said. “But if in time they are, then proper, devolved democratic government should be restored to Northern Ireland.”

In Washington, Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator, briefed Mitchell Reiss, President Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, shortly before the White House welcomed the “important and potentially historic statement”. Scott McClellan, Mr Bush’s spokesman, said that the statement had to be followed by action, adding that “victims and their families will be sceptical”.

The IRA’s statement made no reference to criminality and also failed to signal any move to recognise the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Catherine McCartney, a sister of murder victim Robert McCartney, said that it was not enough. “The IRA has not spelled out where it stands on those within its ranks who indulge in criminal activity. It tells them they have to stop it but it does not say what happens if they don’t stop it.”

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