The SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, meets the Minister for Foreign Affairs today with a fresh party conference mandate to revive the political process and to insist on an end to paramilitarism.
Mr Durkan, who revealed at the weekend that he spurned Mr Tony Blair's plan to expel Sinn Féin from the Executive rather than suspend the Stormont institutions, is confident that the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation will be recalled within the next few weeks.
He is keen to co-ordinate all pro-agreement forces and to avoid the political focus shifting exclusively onto the relationship between Sinn Féin and the British government.
He told delegates to his party's 32nd annual conference in Armagh that all sides must work to address the crisis in confidence which led to suspension, and he pressed the two governments to ensure implementation of the agreement in all its aspects. He warned anti-agreement politicians that the Stormont institutions may be suspended, but that the agreement itself was not.
"We need all of the parties dealing with all of the issues and bringing forward all of the agreement for all of the people," he said.
He demanded an end to all paramilitary activity and, in a clear reference to the Sinn Féin president, he stressed that envisaging a future without the IRA was not sufficient. He said the existence and activity of the IRA only served to undermine the institutions and unnerve unionists.
"There is no point in dismissing such concerns as a figment of unionist paranoia. Nor do formulaic denials suffice," he said.
"It is not just a matter of the individual party leaders envisaging a future without individual armed groups. We need to collectively affirm that the agreement entails a future without paramilitaries. Each of them specifically and all of them collectively."
This was a positive requirement of the people of Ireland and the agreement they mandated, he said.
Mr Durkan said he was convinced there was no collapse in public trust in the agreement itself.
"People are not vexed by the Executive, disturbed by the Assembly or outraged by the North-South Ministerial Council.
"It is more about the way that governments appear to be running after paramilitaries: humouring hard men and bartering bits of the agreement and things not in the agreement. Private lines to private armies will not restore the necessary confidence."
He called for the parties and governments to signal clear intent to get on with the business of implementing the agreement, arguing that public confidence in the agreement would grow when it was shown that all sides were on for it.
The SDLP leader called for the creation of what he called "an implementation compact" to establish a time-tabled programme for delivery of outstanding provisions of the agreement.
These include a Bill of Rights, an all-Ireland charter of rights, a criminal justice review and the North-South Parliamentary Forum. He also called for the British-Irish Parliamentary Forum to be put on "a proper footing" and referred to other shortfalls on social, economic and cultural provisions and on "the agreement's promise to victims \ has yet to be fully implemented".
He urged all sides to look to the bigger picture rather than be daunted by the tensions of working out the immediate next steps. A recalled Forum for Peace and Reconciliation could add weight to the political process, he said, and focus on the mandate given to the agreement by the people of Ireland.
Completion of the forum's work would include Sinn Féin's acceptance of the principle of consent and make clear to unionists that the structures of the agreement would prevail in a united Ireland. "The institutions in the North will stand. The British-Irish structures will continue. The equality guarantees and human rights protections will continue," he said.
"We want the forum to endorse this vision. And we hope that unionists can then see the agreement in this fuller light, that the agreement is not temporary. It is not tactical. It is not transitional. Nor is unity for us about the entrapment of a new minority."
In a rallying call, he rejected the "Stoop Down Low Party" tag, claiming that the only time the SDLP stooped was "to pick up pieces of the wreckage caused by the violence and intransigence of others". He said the party's first generation stood for vision and values which formed the bedrock of hope on which everyone now stands. He committed party members to work for a fairer society, for unity, prosperity and peace.
In its political affairs debate, the conference later called for the two governments to implement the Belfast Agreement fully and to convene inclusive all-party talks.
Delegates endorsed calls for the policing reforms to be concluded, for the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation to be recalled and for all parties to demonstrate commitment to the accord's full implementation.