The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the main Catholic paramilitary group in Britain-ruled Northern Ireland, withdrew from the disarmament program Wednesday, plunging the province's deadlocked peace process into full-blown crisis.  

The IRA said in a statement that the scheme to put all its weapons completely and verifiably beyond use was no longer on the table.

A Downing Street spokesman said they were not surprised by the IRA statement.

"We do not intend to remain quiescent within this unacceptable and unstable situation. It has tried our patience to the limit," said the IRA statement passed to the An Phoblacht newspaper.

"Consequently, on reassessment of our position, and in response to the governments and others withdrawing their commitments, we are taking all our proposals off the table," said the statement.

"The IRA has demonstrated our commitment to the peace process again and again. We wanted to succeed. We have played a key role in achieving the progress achieved so far," it said.

"We are prepared, as part of a genuine and collective effort to do so again if and when the conditions are created for this," the statement added.

The move came after a bitter row over a massive bank robbery in December, blamed by the British and Irish governments on the IRA, though it has denied the involvement repeatedly.

But a Downing Street spokesman said in response to the IRA statement: "The fact remains that it was the IRA that did carry out the Northern Bank robbery and as the prime minister and the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) said on Tuesday therefore it is the IRA that is the sole obstacle to moving forward."

The IRA has carried disarmament for three times and last November, it agreed to allow a Protestant and a Catholic churchman to witness any future decommissioning of its weapons as part of proposals to restore self-rule government in Northern Ireland.

However, the plan was abandoned after the Democratic Unionist Party, the main Protestant party in the province, demanded photographic proof of decommissioning, a demand deemed "unachievable" by republicans.

Northern Ireland has been plagued by three decades of political and sectarian violence between Protestants committed to keeping the union with Britain and Catholics who want to end it and unite with the Irish Republic.

(Xinhua News Agency February 3, 2005)