THE British and Irish governments have not yet agreed what role, if any, Senator George Mitchell might play in the all party negotiations due to begin on June 10th.
This emerged last night as Mr David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, hotly denied yesterday's Irish Times report that he had agreed that Mr Mitchell should play a key role in the process after the North's elections.
Mr Trimble's terse denial caused some surprise, following as it did a series of reports over the past week indicating that the Ulster Unionists favoured involving Mr Mitchell at least in the initial stages of the process to secure the commitment of the parties to the Mitchell report's six principles, and to lead them in "addressing" the issue of decommissioning paramilitary weapons.
In any event, senior Irish sources yesterday dismissed the idea that Mr Mitchell could or should accept a role in the process limited to the unionist agenda.
The Government remains convinced the republican leadership wants to re engage with the political process, and believes a decision on a wide ranging role for Mr Mitchell could be a significant factor in a final IRA ceasefire decision.
Conversely, as one source put it yesterday: "If Mitchell disappears off the screen, it would be seen as equally significant, a negative which could be decisive."
The Irish assessment is that Mr Mitchell's involvement in a central role would reassure republicans that the negotiations offered would be "for real" and would not either follow an "internalist" Northern Ireland agenda, or become deadlocked on the issue of decommissioning.
Alongside that, Dublin holds to the view that the commitment of both governments to the Joint Framework proposals - indicating their shared view of the likely parameters of any settlement - is crucial if the talks process is ultimately to succeed.
There was an echo of that yesterday in Mr Gerry Adams's article in the New York based Irish Voice. Urging Mr John Major not to use "rhetoric to try and pressurise the IRA into call ing a new ceasefire, the Sinn Fein president said there was no prospect of resolving the Northern Ireland problem without "clear and firm guidance at government level".
It is accepted in Dublin that the Framework Documents pose a serious dilemma for Mr Major, with his Commons majority reduced to just one and his government potentially reliant on Ulster Unionist support if it is to survive its term. But one source yesterday insisted: "There is a level of triviality at which it [the process] simply won't work."
Those tensions were also illustrated yesterday by a report in the London Times that Mr Major had been forced to intervene to prevent cabinet divisions over Northern Ireland policy.
The Tory leader in the House of Lords, Lord Cranbourne, is said to object to "the apparent acceptance" by Sir Patrick Mayhew of Dublin's plan to place the decommissioning issue in a "fourth strand" of the talks process next month.
And the Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, and the Conservative Party chairman, Dr Brian Mawhinney, are counted among ministers who will be seeking reassurance when the issue is discussed in the cabinet's Northern Ireland committee over the coming week.
The next week will also see a potentially crucial meeting of the Anglo Irish Inter Governmental Conference in Belfast. The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, might well raise the stakes if crucial decisions about, the conduct of the all party negotiations have not been taken and signalled by then.
Asked about the need for speed, one British minister this week said: "We've got until June 10th." But the Government is taking an altogether less sanguine view, insisting that the assurances it seeks will have a crucial impact on the nationalist community's attitude to the May 30th poll, and to the attitude of its leaders to what hap pens thereafter.