DUP delegation to meet Theresa Villiers to discuss PIRA status

Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers is to have a meeting with the DUP

A DUP delegation is due to meet Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers to discuss the status of the Provisional IRA.

On Wednesday, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) said it intended to leave the Northern Ireland Executive.

Its leader Mike Nesbitt made the recommendation during a meeting with senior party members.

There has been an ongoing political row over the status of the Provisional IRA after the murder of Kevin McGuigan Sr.

Sinn Féin accused the UUP of creating a "crisis", while the DUP said the move was "hypocritical and misleading".

Mr Nesbitt said he had chaired a meeting attended by the party's MLAs, MEP, MPs, senior representatives of its councillors association and its party chairman, and they had endorsed his recommendation "unanimously".

Ruling body

He said the party's ruling body would make a final decision on Saturday and if it was supported then the party would form an opposition.

The Northern Ireland Executive is a power-sharing government drawing ministers from the five biggest parties.

The Ulster Unionist announcement comes as part of a political row that has followed the Police Service of Northern Ireland's assertion that members of the Provisional IRA were involved in the murder of Mr McGuigan Sr earlier this month.

The 53-year-old ex-IRA man, was killed in what police believe was part of a "fall-out" in republican circles after the murder of former IRA commander Gerard 'Jock' Davison in May.

Police said an infrastructure exists at a senior level of the Provisional IRA, but that there was no evidence that Mr McGuigan's murder was sanctioned by that hierarchy.

On Sunday, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said there was no reason for armed republican groups, such as the IRA, to exist as the movement was committed to peace.