THE IRA will declare another ceasefire because the republican leadership still sees the ad vantages of peace, the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland said.
In an interview published in the Times newspaper today, Sir Hugh Annesley warned that the IRA would try to stage more bomb attacks in mainland Britain and the North, before laying down their arms again.
Sir Hugh, who retires as head of the RUC next month, said that "sooner or later" the IRA would abandon its campaign of violence.
"I would certainly see it as coming potentially in the next year. I have no doubt that the republican movement is deeply put out by the strong stance of the British and Irish governments," he said.
Sir Hugh said the IRA would want to declare a new truce from a position of strength.
"I think we are in a situation where further attacks on the British mainland are probable and I think an attack within the province has moved from possible to probable," he said.
He based his prediction on intelligence reports and his own judgment of the thinking of the republican leadership.
He felt Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, and its chief strategist, Mr Martin McGuinness, believed that long term solutions to the problems of Northern Ireland would be solved by politics and not by military force. "I think still that Adams and McGuinness still see the advantages of peace."
Sir Hugh expressed approval of the fact that loyalist paramilitaries had maintained the ceasefire they declared two years ago, despite the latest wave of IRA violence.