The sovereignty of the Irish people and the authority of the Irish Government are challenged by the holding of illegal weapons by republicans, according to Mr Seamus Mallon.
The North's Deputy First Minister, said the outstanding issues of policing, demilitarisation, arms and protecting the institutions needed to be solved in the next two weeks or the outlook for the process was bleak. "We have got to get a grip on it before it evaporates before our eyes."
The SDLP deputy leader told The Irish Times the term "decommissioning" should not be used in reference to the IRA's arsenal, but should be called "the holding of illegal weapons on the island of Ireland."
In a reference to some of the Sinn Fein language during the Nice Treaty campaign in he Republic, Mr Mallon said:
"Here is the sovereignty of the Irish people being challenged, and the authority of the Irish Government by implication, challenged on a daily basis by the holding of illegal arms."
Mr Mallon said it was timely to point out that the holding of illegal weapons was contrary to the Irish constitution and "it flies in the face of the ethos and objectives of the Good Friday Agreement," he added. He was also critical of Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams' comment on Monday, that he doubted a solution would come before the threatened resignation of First Minister, Mr David Trimble, on July 1st. Mr Mallon said this flew in the face of the Irish constitution and the Belfast Agreement.
He questioned how the holding of illegal arms had been labelled by the body politic and by the media, which had "invented quaint phrases for it and ignored the reality." On the issue of policing he said the SDLP was still waiting for the British Government's "firm position" on how the Police Act would be brought in line with the Patten recommendations before reaching a deal, he said.
Mr Mallon also stressed demilitarisation "shouldn't be treated as a bargaining chip between two sets of people who have arms". People had expected to benefit from the Belfast Agreement, he said, but instead some found themselves being used as "pawns".
He said the protection and full working of the political institutions was essential and the Ulster Unionist Party had purposely debilitated the institutions for political reasons. They had also placed an "artificial" deadline with the letter of resignation.
"The reality is, the capacity to sustain the institutions will be very severely weakened unless the four outstanding matters are dealt, with but I'm not going to start putting deadlines on it," he added.