The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has piled new pressure on Sinn Fein with the assertion that decommissioning is "due to be completed" within two years of the signing of the Belfast Agreement.
Speaking ahead of today's meeting with SDLP leaders in London, and potentially crucial talks with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, in Austria at the weekend, this was Mr Blair's most precise interpretation of the requirements of the agreement to date.
Taken together with comments by Mr Ahern to the Dail on Tuesday - that Sinn Fein enjoyed greater room for manoeuvre than the UUP leader, Mr David Trimble - Mr Blair's comments were being interpreted last night as evidence of mounting London/Dublin frustration at Sinn Fein's failure to move on the decommissioning issue blocking the creation of the Northern Ireland executive and the North/ South ministerial council.
That frustration has become pronounced since Mr Blair's abortive meeting with Sinn Fein's Mr Martin McGuinness at Downing Street on Monday. Sources yesterday confirmed that Mr McGuinness's private and public message had been the same - that Sinn Fein could not deliver a start to IRA decommissioning.
Mr McGuinness's meeting with Mr Blair followed on the heels of Mr Ahern's previous assessment that Mr McGuinness was seriously engaged with the head of the International Body on Decommissioning, Gen John de Chastelain.
However, that assessment was not supported by Monday's Downing Street meeting or by a previously undisclosed meeting last week between Mr McGuinness and a senior Ulster Unionist acting for Mr Trimble.
With no apparent Sinn Fein commitment even to the concept of decommissioning as "a requirement" of the agreement, sources close to Mr Trimble last night signalled their intention to bypass the October 31st deadline for agreement on areas for North/ South co-operation and the designation of implementation bodies.
In the Commons yesterday, the Ulster Unionist MP, the Rev Martin Smyth, congratulated Mr Trimble and the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, on their Nobel Peace Prize. However, he challenged Mr Blair to say if he agreed that the "real peace" would only follow the delivery on Mr Blair's commitments prior to the May referendum on decommissioning.
Mr Blair replied: "Of course that is right and decommissioning has to happen as quickly as possible." He continued: "Of course, under the agreement, decommissioning is due to be completed within the two-year period. So I entirely agree with that - the whole of the agreement has to be properly implemented."