THE OFFICE of the British Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street has confirmed that it received a fax yesterday from the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, requesting talks.
A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Office said any Sinn Fein request for a meeting would be "considered on its merits and in the light of prevailing conditions on the ground".
Mr Adams told a press conference in Belfast that he had decided to send the fax after he heard a presenter on the Good Morning Ulster programme asking: "Who is going to lift the phone first?"
He wanted Mr John Major to stake "this little initiative" to see if there was any "wriggle room" in the situation.
The NIO spokesman said later: "When the ceasefire ended, the door was never slammed tight shut, it was always left ajar, and the policy since then has been that any request by Sinn Fein for a meeting would be considered on its merits and in the light of prevailing conditions on the ground.
"Were such a meeting to take place it would only be with officials and before it could take place it would require the approval of ministers."
Mr Adams told reporters: "I have faxed John Major at 10 Downing Street, outlining our party's position and asking him to authorise his officials to meet with our representatives in the spirit that he said he has some ideas on how to move the process on and he's going to put them after the election. I think they should be out now."
The Sinn Fein leader said peacemaking was "a greater issue than the whole timing of the British general election: we can't just go home and wait until after the election, we have to keep pressing ahead".
Similar sentiments were expressed by Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, in a Radio Ulster interview. "I think it's important that we all listen carefully - for example, to what John Major said last week when he said he had some new ideas that he wished to put into practice.
On the same programme the Conservative MP, Mr Andrew Hunter, said it was up to Sinn Fein to make the first move. "The government made it quite clear that there was still a line of communication between it and the Provisionals if they want to use it."
Mr Hunter's comments were criticised by the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley. "We have already said that the government is preparing for a sell out and the statement by Mr Hunter and the statement that the government is always ready for discussions with the IRA shows that."
Referring to the church protests in Ballymena, Mr Adams told the Sinn Fein press conference the "siege of Harryville" must be lifted immediately. Dr Paisley and the UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, had a responsibility to give "positive political leadership".
He said: "If there was a Protestant church in west Belfast or in any republican or nationalist constituency in this part of the island which was being placed under the same siege as the Catholic worshippers at Our Lady's Chapel in Harryville, I - and I'm sure members of other nationalist parties and for certain the local Sinn Fein representatives - would be there shoulder to shoulder with the worshippers and we would be telling those who were behaving in that way that it wasn't acceptable."