US space surveillance suggested during decommissioning

Anti-decommissioning graffiti in west Belfast in 2000

Surveillance from space by the USA was suggested as a way to verify that the IRA was decommissioning weapons during the peace process.

The idea was described as "off the wall" but "worth exploring" by a British official.

The details are contained in the note of a phone call contained in newly-released government papers from the National Archives.

The papers include files from the then Prime Minister Tony Blair's office on Northern Ireland and Ireland from the year 2000.

At the time, there were discussions on the decommissioning of IRA weapons.

The idea that the US could use satellites to monitor whether IRA weapons dumps had been concreted over was raised in a meeting between Irish and US officials.

Brief details were recorded in a note by an official in the Northern Ireland Office (NIO).

According to the note, it was also suggested that satellites could "replicate the functions of the South Armagh towers".

"But we were pretty clear that would not work," the NIO official noted.

He said that when the idea was suggested, a senior diplomat had "laughed it out of the room".

British Army observation towers on the border in South Armagh in 2001

There were a number of army observation towers in south Armagh during the troubles.

The towers were later scrapped as part of the peace process.

That was not the only example where potential help from the USA was raised.

The late Ulster Unionist Party leader and First Minister David Trimble suggested a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Louis Freeh, be appointed to "look into" racketeering and gangsterism in Northern Ireland.

Lord Trimble made the suggestion during a meeting with NIO officials, according to the state papers.

On the Run letters

A number of papers also mention the early development of proposals by the UK government to deal with those known as On the Runs.

So-called On the Run letters provided assurance to over 100 people that they did not face arrest and prosecution for IRA crimes.

But the details were only made public during a court case involving a suspected IRA bomber in 2014.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble at the Belfast Waterfront Hall in 2000

The papers also reveal tense meetings between British officials and Ulster Unionists over symbols, like the use of the Royal coat of arms in courtrooms and a redesign of the PSNI badge.

"Lord Kilclooney and Trimble complained at length about what they saw as the relentless diminution of Britishness in Northern Ireland," the note of a meeting from November 2001 said.

"Trimble said the publication of the proposed designs for a new police badge had 'ignited one hell of a row' within the UUP," a subsequent note said.

An NIO official also described a letter from Trimble to Blair on the situation within unionism as "singularly graceless and ill-timed".