Northern Ireland's First Minister Mr David Trimble said today he was prepared to pull out of the power-sharing Executive if it meant saving the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Trimble, speaking on the BBC On the Recordprogramme insisted that the Agreement was still the best hope for the future of Northern Ireland.
"When the circumstances are right if it is necessary I'm quite happy to do it," he said.
"But if I do this, it will be in order to make further progress, in order to ensure that the Agreement is fulfilled and fully implemented.
"I won't be acting to destroy that Agreement because I know that Agreement represents the best hope for the people of Northern Ireland."
Mr Trimble was speaking a day after he convincingly defeated efforts to impose a deadline for pulling his ministers out of the Stormont administration by July 1st if the government had failed to impose sanctions on Sinn Fein.
A motion put before the Ulster Unionist Party's Executive by Mr Jeffrey Donaldson was comfortably defeated but Mr Trimble did not rule out future action.
In an extensive interview, the Ulster Unionist leader blamed the activities of Sinn Féin and the IRA for the present political crisis and called on the government to take punitive action.
"The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) and Downing Street don't seem to have the courage to tell the truth.
"I think it is essential that we face the realities and that we tell the truth and that we do so in order to sustain confidence among ordinary people."
The British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair has agreed to a request from Mr Trimble to convene round table talks after claims that two members of the IRA Army Council sanctioned weapons testing in Colombia.
Mr Trimble called on the government to impose "modest" restraints including re-arresting paramilitaries who have been involved in street disturbances. He said that so far only loyalists who had flouted the terms of their licences had been returned to prison.
"Republicans have also been heavily involved in violence but the NIO seems to be unwilling to apply sanctions to them."
"By its action the NIO is making it clear that the law and keeping the peace have been made subordinate to political considerations and that is a fatal mistake that they must reverse."
But Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid said that he was not in a position to arrest people at will, and denied that the police service was being prevented from vigorously pursuing offenders.
"There are no political constraints on the police doing their job. They have to pursue that job wherever that leads them", he said.
PA