A senior loyalist and former UDA prisoner has called on the association's leadership to start decommissioning its weapons.
Mr John White, a prominent figure in the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP), said yesterday that initial soundings indicated that the UDA would be disposed to such an initiative.
Mr White expects to meet the leadership this week to put his case for some unilateral disarmament.
He told The Irish Times yesterday that such a move would test Sinn Fein and put pressure on the IRA to begin decommissioning.
His comments are significant as they mark the first formal call on a loyalist paramilitary group to start handing over, or destroying, its arsenals.
Hitherto the UDA's position was that there could be no decommissioning without mutual IRA disarmament.
His call also comes some days after Mr Padraic Wilson, the senior IRA prisoner in the Maze, suggested that the IRA might engage in "voluntary" decommissioning once republicans had a "sense that the arrangements envisaged in the agreement are beginning to function."
Sinn Fein played down the significance of Mr Wilson's remarks, although his interview with the Financial Times last week was sanctioned by the party.
Mr White said he did not consult his colleagues in the UDP leadership before making his call, although it would appear unlikely that he would do so unless he was expecting a favourable response.
"I have spoken about this with UDA members and I think their reaction was very positive," said Mr White.
He said he envisaged initial decommissioning as being a "token gesture" and "one way of testing Sinn Fein's and the IRA's commitment to the process, and it could also undermine those people who want to impede the operations of the Assembly by focusing on decommissioning.
"I honestly think decommissioning is a red herring, but there are parties who want to exploit the issue to wreck the Assembly. I think what is more important is that there is an adherence and commitment to non-violence.
"But I also believe that some decommissioning could be a positive step in the process of reconciliation."
Meanwhile the British government hopes to publish shortly its proposals on how best to begin demilitarisation in Northern Ireland.
In line with the terms of the Belfast Agreement the British government has pledged to "make progress towards the objective of as early a return as possible to normal security arrangements in Northern Ireland, consistent with the level of threat."
This could mean significant reductions in British troop levels in Northern Ireland, the removal of security installations, the ending of emergency powers, and "other measures appropriate to and compatible with a normal peaceful society."
Yesterday's London Observer reported that the British government plans to publish a number of papers shortly on how this process might begin.
A Northern Ireland Office spokesman confirmed that the papers are to be published "as soon as possible".
He stressed that any security changes would be contingent on the existing level of paramilitary threat.
