THE Government has been "ambushed" by John Major's surprise pronouncement that there is now a choice of two preconditions on the road to all party talks, senior republican sources have said.
Following the Mitchell report, republican sources said last night that Mr Major's statement, which failed to mention the February deadline for talks, and circumvented the international body's recommendation on the decommissioning, exposed a serious disregard on the British part for the Government.
"Furthermore, we are now being asked to swallow a unionist agenda, set by a British prime minister who has just screwed the Irish Government. John Major unilaterally dumps the Mitchell recommendation on decommissioning, adopts the unionist position and still talks about trust. How can he?", declared one source.
"John Bruton's position was that the Mitchell report should remove preconditions and it clearly tried to break the deadlock. Dublin acted in good faith and adhered to the twin track approach. But Major has effectively abandoned it and utterly adopted the unionist viewpoint", another added.
As the leadership of Sinn Fein meet to review the situation following Mr Major's comments, party officials refused to be drawn on how they intended to address the Mitchell recommendation that decommissioning take place in tandem with talks. But senior sources indicated they could live with the proposals.
However, their attention was instead last night focused on Mr Major's declaration that he intends to introduce legislation for elections to a Northern assembly as a means to all party discussions.
Concern has also been expressed about how tough the Government will prove to be as leaders of the nationalist consensus, in staving off British plans for elections to an assembly before talks. The SDLP, Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail are steadfastly opposed to the notion.
According to one veteran republican, Sinn Fein now faces a number of limited options it could decide to boycott the assembly elections it could participate in elections and join the assembly the IRA could disarm or the IRA could return to armed conflict.
"It seems now that there is no hope of negotiations starting by the end of February deadline. John Major has provided another device to ensure that all party talks won't start. When there is no movement, that puts pressure on everyone", one source said.