The future of the peace process could depend on Senator George Mitchell arriving at a new construct for the phrase "jumping together", according to senior republican sources.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble has used the term frequently in recent weeks and it is one to which republicans are homing in, in an attempt to find common ground.

Sinn Fein has been receiving mixed messages from its private contacts with Ulster Unionists as to whether there is a real possibility of reaching agreement when the parties resume their deliberations, assuming both sides agree to do so, under Mr Mitchell's tutelage next week.

What "jumping together" precisely will mean when the Mitchell review has finished its work will determine the outcome of this phase of the peace process. There is every appearance, however, that Sinn Fein is still very determined to find a way around the impasse.

Despite significant internal difficulties arising out of the failed attempt to form a power-sharing executive, Sinn Fein may still go back into the Mitchell negotiations playing the same hand on decommissioning which the two governments described as a seismic shift, shortly before The Way Forward document was rejected by unionists.

The decommissioning offer would be on the table only in the context of the implementation of the Belfast Agreement and an undertaking that the additional punitive legislation Tony Blair introduced in parliament, which Sinn Fein believes is outside the framework of that agreement, is set aside.

Any deal on decommissioning achieved via Mitchell would be considered a remarkable achievement for the present leadership, who faced very tough internal questioning after the debacle at Stormont. What particularly angered many of the rank and file was Tony Blair's actions after securing the historic offer from Sinn Fein, when he stretched his own credibility to the limit with republicans while trying to woo David Trimble into the process.

The upshot of that was that for the first time now, senior republican figures are conducting an energetic internal debate as to the future of the process and Sinn Fein's role in it.

The other option, insiders stress, is not a "back-to-war" strategy but rather a different political approach where Sinn Fein would back off what some of its own senior figures now believe has become too much of a high-wire strategy, and let other parties set the pace.

The internal mood has shifted from an enthusiastic endorsement of the peace process and all its advantages, to a phlegmatic "what is the alternative?" sense among the party regulars.

Many senior figures believe that the golden moment to act on the agreement, right after the overwhelming vote on Good Friday last year, was badly fluffed by the two governments. They say the agreement could also have been enacted after Omagh if the political will was there.

However, they are still guardedly hopeful that the long delayed breakthrough can still occur over the next few weeks. One of the reasons for their sense of optimism is a greatly improved relationship with the Irish Government in recent months.

Thus, five years to the week since the IRA called its first ceasefire, republicans say they are still committed to the peace process that that ceasefire set in train. However, they warn of profound cynicism among their rank and file and a growing belief that the Ulster Unionists are intent only on stretching events through to May 2000 and the sell-by date for the agreement in order to kill it off.

They see events of recent weeks in that context, with the Ulster Unionists now seeking the maximum tactical advantage arising from the recent IRA activities in order to stretch out the time frame to May next year. Republicans are scathing about the sudden concern among leading unionists for recent nationalist victims, and they see a well-orchestrated attempt by peace-process rejectionists to use the IRA activities to their advantage.

They believe a postponement of the review, or an attempt to delay matters by taking court action against Secretary of State, Dr Mo Mowlam, are all part of a unionist game plan they say is based on playing for time.

The sources admit recent IRA actions have played into unionist hands and have cost Sinn Fein the high ground they gained after the Trimble debacle, when he failed to turn up at Stormont for the vote on the formation of the executive.

It would not be the first time that the IRA and Sinn Fein have been at opposite purposes during this peace process, however, making a nonsense of the widely peddled notion that there is always agreement on tactics between the different wings of republicanism.

AS to the overall IRA ceasefire, however, republican sources are adamant that it is holding in every important aspect and that it is not fraying at the edges as some have suggested. The suggestion that the current period mirrors the time right before the breakdown of the first ceasefire is firmly rejected.

The recent actions by the IRA occurred under ground rules no different than what they were back in 1994 when the first ceasefire was called, or in 1997 when the ceasefire was resumed, says one source.

In a different time, for instance, the banishment of alleged young offenders would not have rated any major headlines. It is obvious now the IRA believes its ceasefire applies specifically to bombings or offensive actions against the British army, the RUC and loyalist paramilitaries. Like it or lump it, that is how it appears to view it.

What has obviously changed is the immediate context where Mo Mowlam's courageous decision to overlook the breaches for the long-term good has now been thrown back in her face by the latest rash of incidents.

Given recent events, Sinn Fein will be eager to re-establish the primacy of politics next week. It will take part in the Mitchell review with a specific plan in mind if the unionists once again refuse to do business with them. In that event, it will look to the two governments to pick up the pieces and to enact a new Anglo-Irish agreement covering all those aspects of the Good Friday deal which they control.

Sinn Fein points out, convincingly, that if the votes of 71 per cent of the population in the North and 95 per cent in the Irish Republic are set at naught, it will set a dreadful precedent for the future, one the two governments cannot allow to happen.

Despite the alarmist headlines, the peace process is far from dead. "To those who say the peace process is not working, the question can be asked, compared to what," says a senior Irish Government figure. He points out there were 70 per cent more deaths in the five years preceding August 1994, and the first IRA ceasefire than in the five years since. This marching season, with just two deaths, was the most peaceful since 1969.

The only alternative of the rejectionists appears to be a mishmash of old "solutions" such as a military defeat of the IRA which had already abjectly failed, he points out. Put in that context, George Mitchell's task to frame a new way of "jumping together" just might be doable.

Niall O'Dowd is publisher of the Irish Voice in New York