THE IRA has ruled out decommissioning of arms under any circumstances "this side of a final settlement", a leading member of the organisation has said.
The IRA member is interviewed in today's edition of the republican news sheet, Republican News.
The publication reports that the IRA man is the same figure who met the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, and the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, last week.
Mr Adams said the IRA figure told him at that meeting that the organisation was prepared for another 25 years of war" if its conditions for negotiations were not met.
In what appears to be a further hardening of the IRA position, the IRA figure in Republican News rules out arms decommissioning and says the IRA will not "leave nationalist aras defenceless this side of a final settlement."
The Republican News article quotes the IRA man as saying: "Given current political conditions there is not the necessary dynamic to move us all away from conflict and towards a lasting peace on the basis of a viable process which by its nature ensures that the core issues at the heart of the conflict are addressed and resolved."
In a separate article in this week's edition of the Irish American newspaper, Irish Voice, Mr Adams quotes extensively from his exchange with the IRA leader at a meeting, also attended by Mr Hume, on February 28th.
Mr Adams quoted the IRA leader as saying: "We sued for peace. The British wanted war. If that's what they want we will give them another 25 years of war.
"We were always sceptical about the British. Despite this, the discipline of our cessation is probably unequalled in any conflict situation. But if it takes time for the British to address the needs of conflict resolution, then the Irish Government has to take up the slack.
"There will be no surrender of IRA weapons under any circumstances and to anyone. Disarmament of all the armed groups is only viable as part of a negotiated settlement and nobody knows that better than the British. We will accept no precondition what so ever," the IRA man is quoted as saying.
"We are prepared to proactively embrace a real resolution of this conflict", he added.