Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams today said he and his deputy, Martin McGuinness, both urged the step.
Leaders of the main Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, have resigned from Northern Ireland´s government to protest the IRA´s failure to keep its promises to put its arms «beyond use,» AP said.
Northern Ireland´s government, an experiment in Catholic-Protestant power-sharing, could collapse within days. If the IRA did begin to disarm, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble said he and his party´s three other Cabinet ministers would resume their posts.
Sinn Fein´s ultimate goal remains an end to British rule in Northern Ireland and a union of the two parts of Ireland.
