THE IRA leadership is prepared to reinstate its ceasefire and accept the Mitchell report if a date is set for all party talks, according to a senior source in west Belfast.
The IRA would also accept elections as part of an overall package agreed by the two governments. The source said the talks would have to be held by April at the latest.
He denied that IRA hardliners, committed to a full scale resumption of violence, were now in control. The peace process was not irretrievable, he added.
Sinn Fein leaders were not "going through the motions" of attempting to rescue the process but genuinely wanted it back on track.
"We can go back to war and we are prepared for that. But we put so much into the peace process that we would be, very reluctant to let it slide now.
The source said the onus was on the British government to draw up a package which republicans could support "It is all up to John Major now. Does he want peace or does he want war? Does he have the political will to move the situation forward?"
The source agreed there was a considerable hardening of attitudes among grassroots activists recently, and the leadership would have difficulty selling a package that might have been acceptable a few months ago. However, he believed the republican base would reluctantly accept the Mitchell report and elections if all party talks began immediately.
One IRA dissident, however, said such a deal would he totally unacceptable to the grassroots. By accepting the Mitchell report "the leadership would be shedding whatever vestiges of republicanism it has left". A grassroots rebellion would be inevitable, he added.
Meanwhile, the former civil rights leader, Ms Bernadette McAliskey, is urging Sinn Fein to withdraw from all negotiations and take part in a republican congress.
Ms McAliskey made her proposal to the leadership through a third party on Tuesday. "A convention should he held to assess the present political situation and where the republican struggle is going. I am suggesting that Sinn Fein pulls back from negotiations with the British, the Irish Government, the SDLP and the Yanks - and that the IRA pulls back from military operations until this convention has met."
Participation would he open to the broad republican community including Republican Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Socialist Party, the INLA's political wing.
"A convention would offer them a breathing space," she said. "They could get back in touch with their base, rather than suffer continuing humiliation from the British."