British government proposals to drop prosecutions against "on the run" paramilitaries have been put on hold, the Northern Ireland Office has said.
The plans were laid out in the Irish and British governments' joint take-it-or-leave-it package produced earlier this month after talks at Weston Park in England.
In paragraph 20 of the proposals the governments said they accepted there were paramilitaries against whom there were outstanding prosecutions, and in some cases extradition proceedings, for offences committed before the Belfast Agreement.
"Such people would, if convicted, stand to benefit from the early-release scheme. The governments accept that it would be a natural development of the scheme for such prosecutions not to be pursued and will as soon as possible, and in any event before the end of the year, take such steps as are necessary in their jurisdictions to resolve this difficulty so that those concerned are no longer pursued," they said.
It is understood that the name of Mr James Monaghan, one of the three Irishmen arrested in Colombia, was on a list of people "on the run" presented to the British government.
A Northern Ireland Office spokesman said yesterday that as a number of parties had not accepted the proposals, which had been intended to resolve the impasse in the North, there would be no progress on the matter.
The package, as well as a commitment from the IRA to begin decommissioning, which was later withdrawn, failed to secure consensus among the pro-agreement parties.
The spokesman said the British position on those on the run had not changed. He described the measure as being "on hold" as opposed to having been withdrawn.
He could not say what actions would need to be taken in order for the proposal to be reactivated, but it is believed a move by republicans on decommissioning might be one such action.
A Sinn Fein spokesman said the party would not comment on the reports until it had spoken to the British government.
A spokesman for the Irish Government said its ambition was to persuade those parties which had not accepted the Weston Park proposals to do so when talks resumed in the near future.