Pro-agreement parties moved yesterday to bolster the peace process and set foundations for building new confidence.
The efforts follow a rocky week for the political process with fresh controversy over IRA links to Colombian guerrillas and heightened sectarian trouble on the streets of Belfast.
The British and Irish governments will meet the pro-agreement parties next week, probably in Hillsborough, in a high profile effort to boost attempts at implementation of the Belfast Agreement.
In a flurry of political activity yesterday at Stormont and in Downing Street, Mr David Trimble met the Sinn Féin president while an SDLP delegation met Mr Tony Blair and Dr John Reid for 90 minutes of talks.
The First Minister, who at the weekend threatened to resign again in an effort to force British government sanctions against Sinn Féin over alleged republican activities, used a distinctly moderate tone following his talks with Mr Gerry Adams.
"We need to see rapid progress towards a situation where everybody is demonstrably operating only by exclusively peaceful and democratic means.
"That means facing up to the existence of paramilitary organisations and the need for them to change," he said.
Yesterday's press conferences were notably devoid of harsh language.
Referring to the initiative announced by the Loyalist Commission, an umbrella organisation for unionist politicians, Protestant clergy and loyalist paramilitaries, to quell street violence at Belfast interfaces, Mr Trimble said he recognised that republicans might be sceptical.
However, he urged Mr Adams to "explore the initiative and see what that can do in order to put an end to the rioting which has been marring so much of the city in recent weeks". He hoped for a positive response from republicans and that an easing of tension would follow.
Mr Adams, who repeated last week that the street trouble was, in part, due to a crisis within unionist leadership, conceded he understood unionist difficulties over violence and the furore over the Castlereagh break-in and Colombia allegations, which he said he did not believe.
He insisted there was no political alternative to the Belfast Agreement adding: "I don't think any sense of governments or anyone else bringing sanctions against any party is the way to go forward. That is not the way to go forward."
It was a tone echoed in London where an SDLP delegation headed by Mr Mark Durkan met Mr Blair and the Northern Secretary.
Speaking afterwards, the SDLP chairman Mr Alex Attwood said they had stressed on the Prime Minister the impact of violence on "vulnerable communities" in Belfast.
Mr Durkan admitted to "real concerns" about Colombia and Castlereagh but added that "stand-and-deliver tactics" by some unionists only served to undermine the political process.