General had verified weapons disposal - Unionists

He told the UUP a concrete cap was not placed over the weapons and he said he was anticipating another meeting with the Provisionals’ representative soon.

The General told Mr Trimble and three party colleagues: ‘‘We are not prepared to go into methodologies but it is not a cap. That would not meet the requirements.

‘‘The method used does meet the requirements.

‘‘The event is significant. Since I have been here I have seen wall murals many times which say ‘Not a bullet. Not an ounce’.

‘‘I can assure you there is more than a bullet and an ounce but I cannot say how much. We can say, however, that we have taken inventories and it contains a range of materials.’’

The transcript was released by the UUP after the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists claimed after a meeting with the General in Belfast last night that there was not a shred of evidence to prove disarmament had actually happened.

Mr Paisley said the General was unable to tell them ‘‘where the act had taken place, how many weapons were involved and whether further disarmament would occur.’’

DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson also claimed it was clear from their discussions that the General and his colleagues did not know where they were, that they were with people they did not know but assumed they were IRA members and all he could say was ‘‘unspecified material was put beyond use in an unspecified way.’’

But in the UUP’s transcript, the General and his two colleagues told Mr Trimble that while there was no photographic evidence of the event, an inventory had been taken and ‘‘we all handled the arms and weapons to check they were genuine, we counted them and the ammunition and we weighed the explosives.’’

Anticipating hardline unionist criticism over the lack of transparency during the process, the General also told the UUP the decommissioning body had told the IRA the secret nature of the task made it difficult to convince the unionists of the quantity and disposal of the arms because they could not reveal them and the issue had to be taken on trust.

General de Chastelain said: ‘‘We made it clear to O’Neill (the codename for the IRA) that a lack of transparency makes things difficult but we want to get other events and don’t want to create difficulties there.

‘‘We will continue our engagement with O’Neill and expect our next meeting to be soon.’’

He also told the delegation if they believed it to be a ‘‘one-off event’’ by the IRA, the commissioners would have said so in the report.

The commission, he said, was ‘‘given no such indication’’.

Ulster Unionist chairman James Cooper today said they had decided to release extracts from their minutes of the meeting with the Independent International Commission on Decommissoning in the wake of the DUP’s claims that the act of disarmament was dubious.

‘‘We have taken this step to place very clearly in the public domain some of our record of the discussion with the IICD,’’ Mr Cooper said.

‘‘This will allow the public to judge for themselves the views of the commission.

‘‘We view the DUP’s attack on the IICD as belated and totally predictable. It is a desperate attempt by the DUP to throw sand into the air to cover their tracks as they return to government.’’

A UUP spokesman said the transcript had been released with the consent of the disarmament commission.

This was confirmed to PA News by an IICD spokesman who would not comment further.

Mr Cooper also claimed senior DUP figures were contradicting themselves on whether decommissioning had taken place.

He continued: ‘‘If no decommissioning took place why have the DUP gone back into government?

‘‘The DUP is on record as having said decommissioning would never happen.

‘‘They do not have a policy to get decommissioning. It is no surprise, therefore, that Tuesday’s news has thrown them into disarray.

‘‘The reality is that the DUP know that decommissioning has started but they don’t know how to deal with it.’’