Ulster Unionist leader Mr David Trimble is today meeting with the British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair for talks that will centre on a confidential IRA statement on the future of the peace process and the Northern Ireland elections.
As the British government remained under pressure to confirm that assembly elections would take place in Northern Ireland as planned on May 29th, the Upper Bann MP was expected to discuss Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams's weekend speech aimed at clarifying the IRA position on the future direction of the peace process at the London meeting later today.
On Sunday Mr Adams tried to answer three questions posed last week to republicans by Mr Blair on a confidential IRA statement passed to London and Dublin over a fortnight ago.
Mr Blair asked for clarity and certainty over whether the IRA intended to destroy all their weapons, end all paramilitary activity and declare that their arms struggle would end if the Belfast Agreement was implemented in full.
With the British and Irish governments still withholding their blueprint on the future implementation of the Agreement, Mr Adams confirmed that the IRA's process of disarmament would deal with all weapons and that the full implementation of the Agreement would end the conflict.
However Mr Blair was not satisfied by the West Belfast MP's response to the third issue of whether paramilitary activity would be abandoned.
Mr Trimble dismissed Mr Adams's response as inadequate and warned that his party would not have anything to do with the formation of another power sharing executive involving Sinn Fein unless the IRA was stood down.
Mr Blair today warned that the peace process was "running out of time" as it reached "the point of decision".
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Until all parties were committed to exclusively peaceful means, there was "not a basis for reconstituting the government in Northern Ireland", he said.
Speaking at Question Time in the House of Commons, Mr Blair told MPs the situation was now "fraught and difficult" as the election date approached.
But he still hoped to see the "absolutely definitive" move to exclusively peaceful means that was needed to restore the power-sharing institutions.
Mr Blair said: "There can be no question of reconstituting the government in Northern Ireland unless not merely are the undertakings given clearly but also the actions follow.
"I hope very much we can still make progress but time is obviously running out for this. The whole principle of the Good Friday Agreement is that we implement what is in it on the basis that everyone is committed to exclusive peaceful means.
"Until we can be sure of that there is not a basis for reconstituting the government in Northern Ireland."
The "period of transition" for the renunciation of violence by political parties he had offered in October was now over, he said.