SINN FEIN has vehemently denied a Sunday newspaper report that Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness have been appointed members of the IRA army council.
A spokesman for the two senior Sinn Fein figures said the report in yesterday's Sunday Times citing British security and intelligence sources was a "pack of lies".
The newspaper said that the army council had been revamped following a meeting of the IRA's army convention in the Republic during the autumn. It claimed that a new chief of staff from Co Armagh was appointed to succeed the previous chief of staff who was demoted due to illness.
The paper stated that the Sinn Fein president, Mr Adams, and leading party strategist, Mr McGuinness, were appointed as full voting members of the seven member army council which runs the IRA, and has the power to declare war but not to end violence, which can only be done by a meeting of an IRA convention.
It further claimed that the IRA is planning to declare a tactical ceasefire in about six weeks, but in the meantime it plans to organise further violence in Britain and Northern Ireland.
Mr Adams was interned in the early 1970s but has no paramilitary convictions. Mr McGuinness served two periods in prison in the Republic for IRA membership, but was never convicted in Northern Ireland for paramilitary involvement.
Denying the Sunday Times report, the Sinn Fein spokesman said: "The paper is quoting usually reliable sources who as usual are totally unreliable. The claims are a pack of lies."
In December last year the Sunday Times reported that Mr McGuinness resigned from the army council while the decommissioning talks were taking place to try and put some distance between the IRA and Sinn Fein.
At the time Mr McGuinness said the allegations were "nonsense".
Mr Adams has also consistently" denied that he has formal associations with the IRA. Both Mr McGuinness and Mr Adams, however, have always acknowledged that they have ready access to the IRA.
Meanwhile, the DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, has predicted that the British government will suspend the multi party talks, and possibly the Forum, prior to the Westminster elections.
"If there is no likelihood of the decommissioning issue being settled I think it is fairly likely they will kick for touch and look for some form of suspension," he told BBC Radio Ulster.
"I don't think they would call a suspension without bringing the Forum to a standstill as well, and if they bring both talks and Forum to a standstill they could be in danger of creating a very serious vacuum," he added.
Despite criticism from the loyalist fringe parties, the Ulster Democratic Party and the Progressive Unionist Party - which are respectively linked to the UDA and the UVF - Mr Robinson said the DUP would remain resolute in demanding prior decommissioning from paramilitaries before the talks could move forward.
He said that following the suspected loyalist bomb attacks in Derry and Belfast the DUP will consider whether the UDP or PUP should be allowed remain in the talks after the Christmas break.
The UDP leader, Mr Gary McMichael, said he had no information to establish that the UDA was responsible for the attacks. "We must assume at this stage that the loyalist ceasefire remains firmly intact," he said.
Mr David Ervine of the PUP said that from his contacts with the UVF he also believed the loyalist ceasefire remained intact.
