The US government's special adviser on Northern Ireland, Mr Richard Haass, has urged the IRA to undergo a "historic transformation" for peace.
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The US government's special adviser on Northern Ireland, Richard Haass
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With republicans under pressure to produce an IRA statement ending all paramilitary activity, Mr Haass met Sinn Féin leaders Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness.
"If this opportunity is going to be seized, I think the leadership of the IRA is going to have to take positions that would mark a historic transformation," Mr Haass said. "That is going to mean things it says and things it does which would again mark a qualitative change in where it stands.
"I would hope and very much urge that they are prepared to do that."
Mr Haass arrived in Belfast today after the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, announced they would not be unveiling their blueprint for returning devolution to Northern Ireland today.
Discussions are continuing in Dublin and Belfast in an effort to break the latest impasse, which has stalled the release of their document for implementing the Belfast Agreement.
The two leaders canceled plans to unveil their blueprint yesterday because of concerns that an IRA statement which would have followed did not go far enough to persuade unionists to go back into power-sharing with Sinn Féin.
Pressure on the Republican movement mounted today. A spokesman for Mr Blair said the British side was "waiting on the response of others. In terms of the response, it will dictate if and when the Prime Minister goes to Northern Ireland.
Before their meeting with Mr Haass this afternoon, Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams said his party believed its discussions with London and Dublin "on the measures needed to implement the Agreement" were finished.
"There are critical issues which have yet to be properly dealt with but in our discussions with the governments we told them several days ago that the negotiations are concluded," Mr Adams insisted. "There is now, therefore, no reason or excuse for the governments to delay the publication of their plan."
SDLP leader Mr Mark Durkan said "there is now no republican reason for the IRA to exist. "I would say to the IRA, if there is now no republican reason for the IRA to exist, why keep giving the unionists an excuse?"
Ulster Unionist leader Mr David Trimble, who was due to brief party members on the situation at a meeting of his executive later today, accused republicans of holding the peace process "to ransom".
A former Ulster Unionist Assembly member today accused the party of being prepared to accept "another raft of concessions to republicans" in return for words from the IRA. Democratic Unionist MLA Mr Peter Weir, who defected after he was expelled by the UUP for defying the whip at Stormont, claimed: "An amnesty for terrorists, security reductions and the prospect of Gerry Kelly running policing or justice departments were obviously not 'dealbreakers' for the Ulster Unionists.
"There is not a single unionist in the province who believes the UUP's Hillsborough deal with Sinn Féin is good for unionism."