The United States has given strong backing to demands from the British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair for the IRA to clarify its commitment to the Northern Ireland peace process.
Mr Richard Haass, the US special envoy to Northern Ireland, said today that the Bush administration was still hopeful that the IRA would respond positively.
"It remains mine and our hope that it is still possible to get satisfactory answers to these questions," Mr Haass told reporters at the State Department in Washington, referring to a series of three queries posed on Wednesday by Mr Blair.
Those require the IRA to state whether it was truly committed to ending paramilitary activity, completely decommissioning its weapons and fully complying with the 1998 agreement.
"What's being asked of the IRA is not inconsequential. If the IRA were to do what is being asked, it would clearly betransformational," he said."This is major, major stuff, but what people in the rank andfile of the IRA...need to recognize is that this is the only wayto move forward at this point."
"If we do get satisfactory answers to these questions, I am confident that Unionists would give a clear and unambiguous pledge to restore the Northern Ireland assembly and executive," Mr Haass said.
"If we can't get satisfactory answers to the questions that the British prime minister put forward, then it is obviously going to be a time for consultation among the governments and the parties about next steps," he said.
Mr Haass declined to say what those next steps might be but stressed that even if the accord broke down totally, the United States would remain active in seeking a resolution to the Northern Ireland problem. He would not rule out the possibility of imposing punitive sanctions on the IRA, although he stressed none were now under consideration.
"Whether there are other consequences or repercussions, I don't know," he said. "I am not engaged in a careful exercise yet of thinking about how we would respond to the fact that this doesn't work. There is time for that later," he said.
"There will be time enough in weeks and months ahead to think about what would be the possible consequences and repercussions of this not moving ahead."
Additional reporting: AFP