John Major: "Nobody is asking the IRA to surrender"

Mr Major said the problem was that the IRA considered decommissioning to be tantamount to "surrender".

Speaking on the BBC's Breakfast With Frost programme, he said he did not agree with SDLP leader John Hume that decommissioning was a "dangerous distraction".

John Major: "This need not be surrender"

The former Conservative leader said: "The real problem lies in the minds of Sinn Fein and of the IRA because there is a feeling there that they are being asked to surrender.

"Nobody is asking them to surrender. Nobody is saying hand your arms over to the police.

Independent verification

"What people are saying is destroy your arms. They can destroy those arms themselves.

"All that is being asked of them by the government is that those arms be destroyed and there is independent verification by (Canadian) General de Chastelain," he said.

Mr Major said: "This thought of surrender is in their minds."

"If they can put that to one side then the peace process would be secure. While they do not do so then there is a difficulty still to be overcome."

The former Prime Minister, who played a key role in the peace process with the Downing Street declaration in 1993, said: "Progress has been inching forward and it has developed a real momentum."

He said: "It has such commanding support from the people of Northern Ireland in general and it would be an unwise politician who stood in the way of the process."

'There were bound to be setbacks'

Mr Major said it was not surprising there had been setbacks, such as the murder of Billy Wright, the Drumcree stalemate and the Omagh bombing.

He said: "It was always going to be a slow and tortuous process, two steps forward, one step back, optimism, then gloom."

Mr Major, who is now a backbench MP, said the prisoner release programme had been very painful for a lot of people and he said they were expecting something in return.

He said now was the time for extremely difficult decisions and added: "Wisdom must prevail. We are so close."