Mr David Trimble will use a meeting with Sinn Féin tomorrow to quash suggestions that his leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party may be coming to an end.
There has been increasing speculation in republican ranks in recent weeks that Mr Trimble could retire or be ousted as UUP leader, or otherwise eclipsed by a majority unionist DUP-led coalition following the Assembly elections scheduled for next May.
Mr Trimble's fresh assertion of his authority also coincides with reports that at least two of his senior party colleagues are maintaining their own separate channels of communication with the republican leadership.
The UUP leader emerged from talks with the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, at Downing Street yesterday again casting doubt on whether the elections could proceed should the Northern Ireland Assembly remain suspended.
At the same time Mr Trimble made clear to The Irish Times his intention to lead his party into the elections if they are called. He also specifically denied suggestions that he has already decided he will refuse to rejoin the power-sharing Executive ahead of the Assembly poll.
That fact alone will encourage Mr Blair as he prepares for an important meeting this afternoon with the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams.
With the SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, also expected at No 10 tomorrow the Prime Minister's official spokesman last night stressed that this series of meetings is "preliminary" to a sustained negotiation in an effort to restore Northern Ireland's devolved government which could last until the end of February.
However, today's meeting could provide Mr Blair with crucial indications of the likely scale of any republican response to his demand for IRA "acts of completion" necessary to restore public confidence in the political process.
Following his "frank" talks with Mr Blair yesterday, Mr Trimble confirmed that there was as yet "nothing on the table to us" in terms of specific proposals for visible acts of weapons-decommissioning, the standing down of the IRA or the cessation of its various forms of paramilitary activity.
Mr Trimble sought to sustain pressure on Sinn Féin and the IRA by again raising the question of exclusion mechanisms to be deployed in the future against any party deemed in breach of its commitment to purely peaceful and democratic means.
Mr Trimble said: "We asked the Prime Minister to clarify what he meant by 'acts of completion', and he indicated this meant that this time the paramilitaries had to stop all their activities. We need to see republicans completing what they should have done in May 2000. That means they must decommission, visibly and transparently, and agree to wind up their paramilitary organisation."
In the event of that not happening, Mr Trimble continued, "we sought assurances that there would be effective remedies. Let's not forget that when suspension occurred, the innocent were treated just the same as the guilty ones, and that was unfair and wrong. For too long in this process there has been too much carrot and not enough stick."
Despite the strong language, however, No 10 will have been encouraged that Mr Trimble did not repeat his pre-Christmas demand for Sinn Féin's exclusion from a restored Executive on the basis of the leaked Irish Government briefing paper which Mr Trimble originally interpreted as confirmation of continued IRA breaches following Mr Blair's "acts of completion" speech in Belfast.
As he held separate talks with the Secretary of State, Mr Paul Murphy, last night, there was also a question mark over whether Mr Trimble intended continuing his threatened boycott of the multi-party talks process in Belfast.