DUBLIN, Feb 3 (AFP) - Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said Wednesday the Irish and British governments would move ahead with the Northern Ireland peace process even though the IRA had angrily withdrawn an offer to disarm.
"I don't really view the IRA statement in a negative fashion," Ahern told reporters, saying both Dublin and London would continue to engage with all political parties.
In a move which turned weeks of tensions over a bank robbery blamed on the Irish Republican Army into a full-blown crisis, the IRA issued a statement slamming "false and malicious accusations".
The statement, published Thursday in the Dublin-based newspaper An Phoblacht, or Republican News, marked a hardening of attitudes and raised fears of a dangerous political vacuum.
With both London and Dublin accusing it of being behind the massive December 20 robbery in Belfast, the paramilitary group which wants a united Ireland said it was taking "all our proposals off the table" until further notice.
It meant Anglo-Irish proposals for the group to put all its remaining stocks of weapons beyond use in a verifiable way -- plans which almost reached agreement just before Christmas -- are off the agenda for now.
However, Ahern said that what the IRA was saying was that last year's negotiations broke down and their offer was off the table. "That's the normal course of negotiations," Ahern said.
Last month efforts by both governments to revive a power-sharing administration in British-ruled Northern Ireland collapsed because of difficulties about IRA arms decommissioning and allegations of continued criminality.
A previous cross-community executive established under the Good Friday peace agreement was suspended in October 2002, when direct rule from London was re-imposed following allegations of IRA spying.
02/03/2005 14:48 GMT - AFP