Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams appealed directly to Irish Republican Army members yesterday to leave their 35-year "armed struggle" in Northern Ireland behind.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair welcomed Adams's appeal, but said the "final judgment" would depend on whether the paramilitary group heeded the call. Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern praised Adams's appeal, but said that "nothing less than a complete and decisive end" to all its paramilitary activities and capabilities would lead to lasting peace in Northern Ireland.

Adams, a reputed IRA commander since the mid-1970s, didn't directly call for the outlawed organization to disarm fully and disband as the British, Irish and American governments have repeatedly demanded.

But Adams did call for IRA members to begin internal discussions immediately about giving their exclusive support to Sinn Fein, the major Catholic-backed party in this British territory.

"Our struggle has reached a defining moment," Adams said in a statement billed as a direct communication to IRA members.

"I am asking you to join me in seizing this moment, to intensify our efforts, to rebuild the peace process and decisively move our struggle forward."

"Your determination, selflessness and courage have brought the freedom struggle towards its fulfillment. That struggle can now be taken forward by other means," he said in remarks directed at IRA members.

"In the past I have defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle... now there is an alternative."

He appealed to IRA members that their future lay in working for Sinn Fein, not in "risking life and limb."

The creators of a new play about the marathon inquiry into Northern Ireland's "Bloody Sunday" killings 33 years ago say the incident holds important lessons for British peacekeeping forces today.

The Saville Inquiry is the longest, at seven years and counting, and costliest, at 290 million US dollar, in British legal history.

Now millions of words in inquiry transcripts have been condensed into 78 pages of script by Richard Norton-Taylor, security affairs editor at the Guardian newspaper.

PHOTO CAPTION

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, right, and party colleague Martin McGuinness, left, arrive for a press conference in West Belfast, Northern Ireland, Wednesday, April, 6, 2005. (AP)