IRA CLAIMS BOMB BLAST; 2 BODIES FOUND IN RUBBLE.

Byline: Richard W. Stevenson The New York Times

The Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility Saturday for the powerful bomb blast in East London on Friday night, saying the attack had been carried out on "direct instructions from the army leadership."

More than 100 people were wounded in the explosion, but police said Saturday night that they had also found two bodies in the rubble.

The IRA statement, which British and Irish officials said they assumed to be genuine, suggested that the bombing signaled a far-reaching policy reversal by the IRA leadership after 17 months of observing a self-imposed cease-fire in Northern Ireland's long-running sectarian conflict.

The claim of responsibility, made to an Irish television and radio network, came as British, Irish and U.S. officials tried to keep the peace effort from collapsing and expressed hope that the IRA would consider resuming its cease-fire.

Northern Ireland's unionist parties, which represent the Protestant majority favoring continued British rule of the province, also left open the possibility that the peace effort would continue if the cease-fire resumes. But none of the sides indicated any change in their positions, which had led to an impasse.

In Belfast, people said they felt tense and fearful, afraid that violence would resume.

The bomb, which went off an hour after the IRA announced that it would resume its terrorist campaign to force Britain from Northern Ireland, was placed in a van or truck beneath an elevated railway station near the Canary Wharf office complex, the police said.

In the hours after the bombing, there was widespread speculation that it was the work of a hard-line breakaway group in the IRA.

But an Irish official said Saturday that "we're not inclined to go along with the idea of a splinter group," adding that it might be days before intelligence and political assessments yield a definitive judgment on the IRA's apparent turnabout.

On Saturday night, police said that in the wreckage of the blast they had found the bodies of two men originally reported as missing.

Five people were wounded seriously enough to require surgery; most of the rest suffered cuts and bruises. The bomb did more than $100 million of damage to buildings, according to initial estimates.

The British government, which has been insisting that the IRA begin handing over its explosives and weapons before its political wing, Sinn Fein, could take part in full-scale negotiations, said the door was still open for Sinn Fein to meet its conditions and come to the table.

"I don't believe it is over," said Sir Patrick Mayhew, Britain's Northern Ireland secretary. "The key to this process is confidence. Nobody is going to come and sit around the table if they believe there are some sitting round the table who have friends outside the door with weapons and with a threat."

In Dublin, the Irish government demanded that the IRA reinstate its cease-fire and said it would not meet with Sinn Fein's leader, Gerry Adams, until it had done so.

The Irish government has generally supported Adams' argument that Britain should include the question of disarmament in full-scale negotiations rather than require an arms surrender as a precondition to talks.

"Only those who take no part in violence, in the threat of violence - or in the support of violence - can take part in democratic negotiations," the Dublin statement said.

In a series of television and radio interviews Saturday, Adams said he had no prior knowledge of the bombing, although he called the White House on Friday before the bombing to inform the Clinton administration of reports that the IRA was ending its cease-fire.

Adams said blame for the bombing was "squarely with the IRA," and he said the attack left him "very sad."

But he declined, as he did Friday night, to condemn the bombings, saying "ritualistic selective condemnations" were of no value.

"I have to examine my conscience and my stewardship of this process to ask and to ponder if there is something else I could have done in the last 18 months to consolidate the process, and John Major needs to do exactly the same," Adams said, referring to the British prime minister.

"We need to get involved in urgent talks to try to move the situation out of the abyss that is facing us all at the moment."

Protestant unionist leaders said the bombing vindicated Major's insistence that the IRA begin turning in its arms before negotiations, and they made clear that the IRA and Sinn Fein would have to take concrete steps to renounce violence before any progress could be made.

There has been no indication that unionist paramilitary forces would end the cease-fire they adopted not long after the IRA called a halt to its terror campaign in September 1994.

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Photo A Royal Ulster Constabulary officer guards a checkpoint Saturday in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during an alert after the London bombing. Associated Press