Loyalists will today confirm the worst-kept secret in the peace process, when they reveal details of decommissioning.

More than a week after the details leaked out, two things are planned.

In east Belfast, a Progressive Unionist Party news conference at which UVF and Red Hand Commando decommissioning will be confirmed.

And, separately, a senior source is confirming plans for a “major announcement by the UDA”.

The two loyalist sides are at different stages in the decommissioning process.

While the UDA made a late start, it is believed that the UVF and Red Hand Commando have both decommissioned all their weapons, ammunition and explosives under their control. The arms were delivered to a single location.

That decommissioning happened on the weekend beginning Friday, June 12.

The two groups moved jointly and completed the process within a day.

Before decommissioning, the UVF had put their weapons under the central control of “battalion commanders” — “procurement” was banned and orders were given for no “offensive” actions.

When they moved to decommission, not only the IICD commissioners were present, but three other witnesses, who were said to be from both sides of the community. At today’s news conference, the Progressive Unionist Party leader Dawn Purvis is expected to speak as well as decommissioning interlocutor Billy Hutchinson.

Separately, the UDA inner council, its brigadier leadership, will issue a statement.

The big question here is when that group plans its next decommissioning move.

General de Chastelain and his team are due back in Belfast next month.

Sources are hoping the UDA will give some indication of an endpoint for disarmament, but a source close to the organisation last night played down expectations of a date being declared.

General de Chastelain will make a progress report no later than August and the cut off point for decommissioning is February next year.

With this decommissioning loyalists are moving ever closer to an endgame — and to confirmation that their war is over.

It is not clear if the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning will respond immediately to today’s developments.

Nine days after the arms story broke in the news, the loyalists are now ready to tell their stories, to confirm that worst kept secret.