A fresh initiative to break the decommissioning deadlock may be taken in the coming fortnight, ahead of the Ulster Unionist Party conference on October 24th.
British and Irish ministers and officials are continuing their efforts, in parallel with the decommissioning body set up under the Belfast Agreement, to make progress on the issue.
"Lots of ideas are being bounced around," an official source said, but suggestions that a breakthrough was imminent were described as "a bit premature".
Peace process insiders said a more measured and considered statement of its position was being sought from the IRA. The key point about such a statement would be, according to sources, that "it did not contain the word `never' " but offered the possibility of eventual decommissioning if, in the view of the republican movement, the causes of the current conflict had been removed.
However, any prospect of a specific timetable committing the IRA to dispose of weapons and explosives over the coming months has been flatly ruled out by republican sources.
Republican insiders believe the pressure on the IRA has been eased considerably by comments made at last weekend's conference of the Progressive Unionist Party, clearly indicating that the UVF was not planning to dispose of its weapons even if the IRA decommissioned.
These comments, sources said, put decommissioning firmly on the long finger. The notion of the IRA disposing of weapons after it had been made clear the UVF would be holding on to its arsenal was not realistic.
A statement is expected from the head of the decommissioning body, Gen John de Chastelain, in line with the decommissioning body's brief under the Belfast Agreement to report to both governments at regular intervals.
As previously reported in The Irish Times, Gen de Chastelain has submitted questions to the paramilitaries on the size of their arsenals and the "modalities" of decommissioning.
Further details of these questions have emerged on Radio Ulster. The decommissioning body has asked the paramilitaries whether they believed explosives should be decommissioned before guns and it has also floated the idea that the different groups sit down together at an aggregate meeting with the decommissioning body.
Mr Billy Hutchinson of the PUP said if the questions were answered by the UVF it would "go a long way" to making progress on decommissioning: "It may not lead to actual decommissioning but it would show some form of spirit of intent to actually take part in a process, and I think that that would be important to the decommissioning body."
Yesterday Sinn Fein's Mr Martin McGuinness said he could not foresee the IRA surrendering its weapons, but suggested it might consider voluntary destruction when conditions were right.
Meanwhile, in a statement issued in Philadelphia, the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, said: "The current impasse around the implementation of the Good Friday agreement has been created by a mentality within unionism which is refusing to change and which wants to impose a veto over political change."
Mr Adams was speaking on the third day of a tour of the United States.
The Workers' Party president, Mr Tom French, said nationalists and unionists should stop "shadow-boxing" and "get on with what you were elected to do".
He said "the two big sectarian power blocs" were engaged in charades over decommissioning and cross-Border bodies. "Once again the people of Northern Ireland are being treated as mere spectators and left on the political sideline."