Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has emphasised political partnership as a way forward for the political process in the North.
Mr Ahern was speaking in Belgium as he visited a memorial to Irish soldiers who died in the first World War.
Repeating his call for an end to paramilitarism, Mr Ahern said all sides had big decisions to make. "All sides in the Irish peace process must seize the opportunity to finally shake off the spectre of violence," he said.
Mr Ahern’s comments came after it emerged he met the president of Sinn Féin, Mr Gerry Adams, privately in recent weeks to discuss efforts to get the IRA to abandon paramilitarism and criminality for good.
"Paramilitarism in all its manifestations has to be consigned to history. Equally, political partnership has to be accepted as the way of the future," Mr Ahern said.
Mr Adams issued a public appeal to the IRA in April to abandon the armed struggle for what he called the democratic alternative. Later that month, the Provisionals confirmed they had begun an internal consultation process with their members about the organisation's future.
However unionists, particularly the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists, insist any IRA statement confirming an end to paramilitary and criminal activity must be crystal clear and matched by arms decommissioning.
Speculation in London, Dublin and Belfast has been mounting that the IRA could respond before the summer marching season to Mr Adams's appeal for the organisation to go in a new direction.
Government sources have suggested the deadline for a response from the Provisionals will be Drumcree Sunday, July 10th - the day of Portadown's infamous Drumcree Protestant Orange Order march.
Mr Ahern reaffirmed his government's commitment to the Belfast Agreement. "I remain absolutely convinced that it is the only way forward in that it gives us a framework for peace, stability, justice and partnership that will benefit every citizen who shares the island of Ireland," he said.
The Taoiseach laid a foundation stone with Flemish Minister for Tourism Geert Bourgeois for a new residential complex to the Irish Peace Park at Messines Ridge.