Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain will hold talks with the political parties next week while rushing emergency legislation through Westminster, enabling the recall of the Stormont Assembly on May 15th.
In a statement to MPs yesterday, Mr Hain said his new bill would arrange the Assembly recall "with the express purpose that it sets about electing a first and deputy first minister on a cross-community basis and then forms an Executive under the d'Hondt formula".
He insisted that the latest British-Irish initiative to restore devolved government to Northern Ireland, launched by Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on April 6th, was "designed for success, not failure".
Mr Hain acknowledged, as had Mr Blair and Mr Ahern, that London and Dublin could not force the Northern parties to share power and that failure by the November 24th deadline could see government "forced to close the book on devolution for the foreseeable future".
The secretary of state also laid bare the British government's belief that the DUP and Sinn Féin would eventually sit together in government.
Describing direct rule as "a 1970s solution to a 1970s problem", Mr Hain said: "Since then Northern Ireland has moved on and changed beyond all recognition. It is light years away from the Troubles.
"Where once there was economic stagnation, there is now vibrancy. Where once there was the futility of cyclical violence, there is now the stability and prosperity of peace and where once the political landscape was riven by sectarianism, there is now a shared desire from all the parties to move forwards and take their places in the devolved institutions into which they were elected."
The real argument, said Mr Hain, "is when and how".
His emergency bill would allow the transitional Assembly to meet for six weeks before the summer recess and for a further 12 weeks ahead of the November deadline for forming an Executive.
Officials confirmed last night that this temporary measure reflected the "one-off" nature of the current initiative, and that the original 1998 legislation effecting the Belfast Agreement would remain on the statute book.
Mr Hain said the transitional Assembly would address issues such as the economy, education reforms, public administration and water charges, while holding out little prospect of change in British government policies currently being implemented by direct rule ministers.
He told SDLP leader Mark Durkan he did not envisage "any new status" for North-South bodies established under the original agreement, currently operating on a "care and maintenance" basis. Mr Hain was also at pains to reassure Unionist and Conservative MPs that "there is no question of joint authority" arising from the statement by Mr Blair and Mr Ahern in Armagh.
DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson said the threatened "step change" in North-South co-operation should the devolution project fail had been "crass and foolish and contrary to any concept of the principle of consent".
Mr Hain told him there was "absolutely no threat" to the North's constitutional position and agreed with former Northern Ireland minister Michael Ancram that the internal "governance" of the North would "of course" remain the responsibility of the British parliament.
Mr Hain similarly upheld Westminster's "supremacy" in response to the Conservative spokesman for Northern Ireland, David Lidington, who told him that "any form of joint authority would be in breach" of the consent principle.