BELFAST - Gerry Adams, leader of Northern Ireland's main Catholic Party, Sinn Fein, was preparing Wednesday to give what was billed as a major speech on the future of its IRA paramilitary wing, amid pressure for the group to disband.
Sources close to the Irish Republican Army told AFP that Adams would speak about a "future without the IRA", but stop short of calling for its dissolution.
The IRA has come under intense pressure to disband since it was accused of being behind a spectacular pre-Christmas bank robbery in Belfast and several of its members were linked to the January murder of Robert McCartney, a local Catholic man.
McCartney's five sisters and fiancee, who have waged a high-profile campaign to bring his killers to justice, allege that the IRA has intimidated witnesses into staying silent about the murder, carried out before dozens of people in a crowded bar.
Twelve men have been arrested in connection with the case before being released without charge.
McCartney's relatives have visited Dublin and Washington as part of their campaign, and were due to make their case Wednesday to the European Commission and the European parliament.
During their visit to Washington last month, some Irish American supporters of Sinn Fein and the IRA called for the IRA to disband over its links to crime.
At the time, powerful US Senator Ted Kennedy, an Irish American, urged Sinn Fein leaders to break with the IRA, which he called "an albatross" preventing a permanent settlement in Northern Ireland.
And unlike previous years, Adams as well as other Northern Irish political leaders, was shunned by the White House during the annual celebations for the feast day of St Patrick, Ireland's patron saint.
Protestant factions in Northern Ireland are adamant that there can be no political progress towards a lasting peace settlement without a move by the IRA to end all criminal and paramilitary activity.
The IRA declared a ceasefire in its war to end British rule in Northern Ireland before the landmark 1998 Good Friday peace deal, which largely ended 30 years of violence in the province.
The deal paved the way for a Protestant-Catholic power-sharing assembly, which was suspended more than two years ago amid allegations of IRA espionage.
British and Irish efforts to revive power-sharing and secure a permanent settlement collapsed before Christmas after Sinn Fein rejected Protestant demands for photographic proof of weapons destruction.
04/06/2005 13:49 GMT