BELFAST, Northern Ireland — The Irish Republican Army has secretly scrapped a second cache of weapons, disarmament officials announced Monday in an important boost for Northern Ireland's peace accord and power-sharing government.
The IRA, which began getting rid of weapons in October as the 1998 peace pact here intended, said it had presented another chunk of its arsenal to disarmament officials "so that the peace process can be stabilized, sustained and strengthened."
The British and Irish governments welcomed the move, as did Northern Ireland's Catholics, some of whom support the outlawed IRA.
"This is very welcome news. It shows that last October's action by the IRA was not an isolated event," said Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid, who added, "We are definitely moving in the right direction."
But reactions within the province's British Protestant majority ranged from a cautious welcome to outright scorn. Critics predicted that Britain would now offer the IRA painful concessions in return.