Gerry Adams, leader of the Irish Republican Army's (IRA) political ally Sinn Fein, signalled on Sunday that the guerrilla group was ready to give up its arms, but only if a new Northern Ireland peace deal can be struck.
An Anglo-Irish summit aimed at restoring home rule to the province ended without agreement last month, despite London and Dublin saying they were close to securing the end of the outlawed IRA as an active paramilitary organisation.
The talks stalled over the demand of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) for a re-writing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, a peace deal which set up self-governing institutions to share power between divided Protestant and Catholic communities.
"It's generally accepted that the IRA is prepared, in the context of a comprehensive agreement, to make an unprecedented and historical move forward," Adams told BBC television.
"But I don't see any evidence that the DUP has shifted its position."
The US-brokered Good Friday pact has largely ended three decades of conflict which claimed 3,600 lives, but failed to heal deep sectarian divisions or provide stable government in the British-ruled province of 1.7 million people.
A breakdown in trust between Protestant unionists, who support the province's political union with Britain, and Catholic republicans who want a united Ireland, led to the suspension of power-sharing in October 2002.
After last month's three-day summit Britain and Ireland said they believed they had solved one sticking point that has dogged the peace process for a decade - the refusal of the IRA to fully disarm and disband - although they did not give details of what was on the table.
But efforts to revive home rule in Belfast remain deadlocked over another issue - the demand from the DUP, led by hard-line Protestant preacher-politician Ian Paisley, for changes to the way the power-sharing legislature and executive operate.
The DUP, which refuses to sit in government or even negotiate with Sinn Fein, the largest Catholic party, until the IRA is wound up, says reforms are needed to make the self-governing institutions more accountable.
Catholic politicians accuse the party of attempting to restore Protestant majority-rule by the back door.
"I think it's inevitable that we and the DUP and others will do a deal, but the only way that we can do it is on the basis of equality," Adams said.
"And I've seen no evidence of any contribution from the DUP on that issue. I hope I'm wrong in this, but I'm more and more of the view that the DUP have a longer timeframe (for reaching a deal) than the rest of us ... have in mind."
Britain and Ireland are currently working on their own proposals for reviving power-sharing, which they plan to put to the province's parties in an attempt to end the impasse.
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