The Conservative leader, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, has urged the British and Irish governments to make common cause in demanding total IRA decommissioning and disbandment by May next.
In a letter to the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, Mr Duncan Smith has sought to put the brakes on any further concessions to Sinn Féin at tomorrow's crisis talks involving the two governments and the pro-agreement parties at Hillsborough.
Mr Blair and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, are hosting the emergency summit at the request of the First Minister and Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, in response to a perceived collapse in unionist confidence in the Belfast Agreement following a series of recent allegations about continued activities by the Provisional IRA.
Clearly cautioning Mr Blair to avoid a repeat of last year's Weston Park negotiations, Mr Duncan Smith told him last night: "I believe that making new concessions to parties who have not fulfilled their existing obligations reduces the incentive to comply. Furthermore, such concessions generate a sense of injustice, betrayal and cynicism throughout the community in Northern Ireland." The Tory leader assured the Prime Minister his party remained ready to support "any moves that reinforce the process, end the current drift and bring about the full implementation of the agreement", and expressed the hope that tomorrow's talks would contribute to that end.
However, Mr Duncan Smith challenged Mr Blair to say whether he agreed with the Taoiseach that the decommissioning of all illegally held weapons should be completed by May 2003, and that the IRA must be disbanded.
The Conservative leader also invited Mr Blair to say if it was his view that the ceasefires were "complete and unequivocal" as set against the "tests" the Prime Minister outlined in the referendum campaign in May 1998 - tests which Mr Blair said would become "more rigorous over time".
Specifically Mr Duncan Smith asked Mr Blair for an assurance that he would not now proceed with "the proposed amnesty for on-the-run terrorists" and pressed him to say that the disqualification on people with criminal convictions for terrorist offences would not be lifted to enable them to serve on district policing partnership boards or be recruited to the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Pressing his concerns about policing matters, the Conservative leader also asked Mr Blair: "Could you confirm that you will not, in the current or foreseeable circumstances, proceed with the disbandment of the Full Time Police Reserve or allow police numbers to be further reduced from their existing, very limited levels?"
Surprisingly, Mr Duncan Smith's letter did not raise Mr Trimble's expected proposal that the British government change the rules to facilitate the possible exclusion of Sinn Féin, by bypassing the requirement for a cross-community vote in the Assembly and taking the power to exclude parties from the power-sharing Executive upon itself.