The First Minister, Mr David Trimble, has called on the Sinn Fein leadership to rescue the Belfast Agreement if they do not want to be judged by history as failing the people of Northern Ireland.
Writing in yesterday's Belfast Telegraph, Mr Trimble said the whole community looked to Sinn Fein to demonstrate a real commitment to peace. "Otherwise, the hopes of a new generation will have been cruelly dashed. History's verdict will be no less cruel," he added.
"Republicans argue that they have been asked to meet an artificial unionist deadline and to surrender. This is a patently false notion. All that has been asked of them is to fulfil the basic democratic condition and to choose between the party and the army.
"As Senator Mitchell can verify, Sinn Fein were under no illusions about the fact that a start would have to be made by the end of January if the institutions were to continue to receive broad acceptance," Mr Trimble said.
He was convinced that many nationalists and republicans were feeling just as "cheated" as most unionists that the IRA had "vetoed" a new future based on participation and partnership.
He said he would work "tirelessly" to put the institutions back in place if they were suspended. "Republicanism has made the task of reviving the agreement and the institutions all the harder. I can see no way in which my party can be expected to re-enter the Executive solely on the basis of understandings."