Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams is to have talks with British prime minister Tony Blair later today as the Irish and British governments finalise plans to restore the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly.
The party's chief negotiator, Martin McGuiness, will also visit Downing Street.
Mr Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern are due in Armagh city on Thursday to announce new proposals to revive the power-sharing executive in shadow form next month in advance of full restoration of the institutions in Belfast by November.
Democratic Unionist Party leader the Rev Ian Paisley has already ruled out his party entering any arrangement with Sinn Féin.
As part of the process to get Stormont up and running again, the two governments will ask for the 108 Assembly members to be recalled and then allow six weeks for the executive to be formed.
But Sinn Féin and the SDLP have warned London and Dublin against any attempt to form a shadow assembly with scrutiny committees ahead of full-blown power sharing.
Before he left Belfast today, Mr McGuiness insisted the two governments needed to restore the institutions immediately.
PA