Sinn Féin will meet the Taoiseach in Dublin this morning before meeting the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, in Downing Street, as efforts to find agreement continue.
Mr Ahern claimed yesterday that an IRA representative had been in further contact over the weekend with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, headed by Gen John de Chastelain.
Sinn Féin will take part in talks at Hillsborough, Co Down, on Wednesday to be jointly hosted by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern, and the Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy.
A reliable, senior Sinn Féin source said the party was committed to finding an early solution to the impasse which led to last week's failed attempt at agreement.
The outstanding problem, The Irish Times was told, was "DUP demands on the issue of arms". It was claimed that an IRA commitment to ending any activity that endangered political progress was not an issue either for Sinn Féin or the British and Irish governments.
The release of the killers of Det Garda Jerry McCabe had been agreed in October last year, the source said, and the raising of that and last week's IRA statement by the Progressive Democrats was "politicking" and a clear attempt "to attract votes away from Fine Gael".
The DUP leader detailed the type of photographic evidence unionists needed to convince them IRA decommissioning had been completed.
The Rev Ian Paisley said: "If we hadn't three charades of so-called decommissioning, we wouldn't have to be as strong on this matter. We must first of all have an independent observer and that independent observer must be free to do what he likes as far as having a notebook, as far having his own inventory, as far as saying what time so many arms were destroyed.
"He must be absolutely free but, of course, that has never been agreed by the IRA. Then he must be able to have photographs taken by the [ de Chastelain] commission, not by the IRA, on every step taken for the destruction of those arms - photographs before they were destroyed, photographs when they are destroying and photographs of after they're destroyed."
The political fallout among the Northern parties since last Wednesday's publication by the governments of its blueprint intensified yesterday.
Mr Peter Robinson, the DUP deputy leader, issued a strident rebuttal of Mr David Trimble's claims that too much had been conceded to republicans on policing and justice.
The SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, stepped up his party's criticism of the British-Irish "Comprehensive Agreement" saying: "There is only one comprehensive deal, and that is the Good Friday agreement."