The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) in Northern Ireland announced in Belfast, the provincial capital, on Monday that the Ireland Republican Army (IRA) has destroyed all of its weapons.

General John de Chastelain, head of the IICD, made the announcement at a news conference accompanied by two churchmen, Father Alex Reid and former Methodist President Harold Good, who had witnessed the process "minute by minute", Sky News television reported here.

The remarks come eight years after the arms decommissioning body began its work.

"All paramilitary arms" of the IRA have been decommissioned. "It's vital we told it as we saw it," said de Chastelain, who has been in Ireland overseeing the latest round of decommissioning since the beginning of September.

"We have observed and verified events to put beyond use very large quantities of arms which we believe include all the arms in the IRA's possession," he said.

According to the general, the arms destroyed "represent the totality of the IRA arsenal," which "constitutes an end to our mandate."

He also expressed the hope that a final and successful resolution would be possible.

The arms include a full range of ammunition, rifles, machine guns, mortars, missiles, handguns, explosive substances and other categories described in the estimates provided by the security services.

But de Chastelain would not go into detail as "confidentiality is part of the process."

"In September 2004, the commission got estimates of numbers and quantities of arms from IRA security forces in both jurisdictions. Our new inventory is consistent with these estimates. We are satisfied that the arms decommissioning represents the totality of the IRA's arsenal," he said.

After over 30 years of violence, the IRA announced in July an end to its armed campaign and that it would follow a democratic path in resolving issues.

The report confirming the conclusion of the IRA decommissioning was handed to the British and Irish governments early, which will put pressure on both Sinn Fein, the political arm of IRA, and on the Unionists to form a coalition government in the province.

The unprecedented move is deemed by many analysts as having the potential to revive the peace process in Northern Ireland.

However, unionists who have been insisting on photographic evidence of the decommissioning are not satisfied.

(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2005)