There were strong indications in Belfast last night that the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, might be forced to adjourn the Hillsborough negotiations - and resume the search for agreement on decommissioning and the creation of the Northern Ireland Executive after the Easter holidays. Official sources refused to rule anything in or out and the deputy First Minister designate, Mr Seamus Mallon, maintained that the two leaders could yet secure an agreement later today.
Shortly after the talks adjourned for the night, a spokesman for Mr Blair said there had been a very good, positive atmosphere and real progress was being made.
However, the Sinn Fein delegation leaving Hillsborough Castle said they were "frustrated and disappointed" at the Ulster Unionists' responses to their efforts to find a way forward. The delegation said they did not feel progress had been made, but said they would return today in the hope that an agreement could be reached.
A senior SDLP source maintained that progress had been made and expressed the hope there could be further developments today.
But a UUP source described the situation as the talks adjourned last night as "no change".
Earlier, shortly before the talks adjourned, the UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, said the situation had been "complicated by the deepening crisis in Kosovo - the Prime Minister has given some attention to that as well".
"We have had a brief meeting and we expect to have another meeting, but there doesn't appear to have been any progress yet in terms of persuading the paramilitaries to carry out their side of the agreement."
Mr Blair needs to return to London to answer questions and give MPs an update on the Kosovo crisis at Prime Minister's Question Time this afternoon, before the House rises for the Easter holidays. Speculation about a possible adjournment in the talks process grew after official sources acknowledged there was still a "long way to go" in attempting to bridge the gulf between the Sinn Fein and Ulster Unionist positions - and after it was confirmed to the parties that Dr Mo Mowlam would not be proceeding today to trigger the d'Hontd procedure for the allocation of executive posts.
That defused the immediate threat of a collision between Dr Mowlam and anti-agreement unionists seeking an Assembly debate on a motion to exclude Sinn Fein from office.
Mr Ahern and Mr Blair were reviewing their options after lengthy, and seemingly positive, meetings with the Ulster Unionists and Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein leaders met Mr David Trimble and Mr John Taylor for some 15 minutes after more than two hours of talks with Mr Blair, which the Taoiseach attended for some 20 minutes. But despite their general insistence that progress had been made, one well placed source said the UUP leadership subsequently advised Mr Blair that they and Sinn Fein were "not speaking the same language".
After a meeting of their Assembly party at Hillsborough most UUP leaders departed for the night while discussions continued about subsequent arrangements for the continuation of the process.
The Taoiseach is vigorously opposed to the idea of "parking" the agreement fearing that a review - as allowed for under the terms of the agreement - could be protracted by a summer punctuated by the European elections, the marching season and mounting agitation over the Patton Commission.