The Northern Ireland Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, is to launch a series of talks with Northern parties and with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, next week, with the US special envoy, Mr Richard Haas, coming to act as "honest broker" to try to break the political impasse before July.
"We've got about seven or eight weeks before the the summer holidays and we have really got to work hard and ensure we break this impasse as we move into the autumn," Mr Murphy said in an interview in New York at the end of a three-day visit to the US.
Mr Haas, who will meet the parties and the two governments, has "in the last six or seven weeks spent more time in Northern Ireland than he did in the United States", said Mr Murphy.
"He knows everybody, he's trusted by both sides and the ideas he can feed into the process are always very good. That coincided with the meeting I'm having with Brian Cowen next week. We will be discussing how we take the process forward now. We haven't yet decided the nature of those talks, that is what next week is all about."
Referring to the Bill in Westminster dissolving the Assembly, Mr Murphy said the British government had inserted an amendment setting November 15th as a date after which the legislation falls.
"That's the time-frame we're looking at," he said, but he "did not want to get hooked" on a specific new election date. If there was no election set by then, "I would have to go back to parliament to renew that legislation by affirmative resolution in both houses of parliament, which makes it a big event if we don't do it, so it gives us an incentive to get on with the talks and hopefully have the elections.
"If you pick a date, say some date in September and we haven't quite made it, then we're back to the position we were in the beginning of March where we thought that we were going to finalise the deal between the pro-agreement parties within the time-scale, and we then moved the election to May 29th but it didn't work out."
Members of the Assembly who have been receiving two-thirds of their salaries would continue to be paid "around a half" the original salary level with the amount subject to consultation with the parties, Mr Murphy continued.
"The offices of the Assembly members will continue because the last thing we want to do is give the impression that we're closing down the Assembly," he added. This would keep the political process ticking over so people were aware that it's not closed down.
"It is important that people are aware that the political class, if you like, which has developed in the last four years is kept intact . . . we don't want that to disappear and it also gives us an extra incentive to make sure the elections are coming." Mr Murphy said elections were not held this month because "we didn't think it was reasonable to elect to an Assembly which would remain suspended", as they believed "unionists of any persuasion wouldn't have gone into that Assembly and formed an Executive". He denied the reason was "that the DUP or some other parties would do well or badly". Mr Murphy refused to be drawn on recent revelations about the actions of British intelligence in Northern Ireland or the "Stakeknife" affair.
"After 30 years of conflict things will emerge that people won't like because that is the nature of conflict," he said.
People should look forward, he said. There was "a tremendous amount of hope in the peace process". Despite the disappointments and some of the "awful issues" that had arisen, "none of those things in my view will attack the peace process in such a way that it will stop".
During his visit Mr Murphy met members of the Congressional Ad-Hoc Committee on Ireland, whose members include Congressmen Jim Walsh, Jack Quinn, Peter King, Richard Neal and Chris Smith, as well as Senators Edward Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.
He said he had not been given a hard time over the decision - much criticised by Irish-Americans - to postpone Assembly elections until next autumn. They might disagree on tactics but they were united on the strategy, along with the pro-agreement parties and the British and Irish governments, Mr Murphy said.