Members of the US Congress have called on the Northern Ireland First Minister, Mr David Trimble, to stop using decommissioning as a way to "renegotiate" the Belfast Agreement.
In a special debate in the House of Representatives on the Agreement, Republican and Democratic members called on Mr Trimble to carry out the terms of the Agreement and appoint Sinn Fein ministers in the future Executive.
Republican member Mr Jim Walsh, who is chairman of the Friends of Ireland in Congress, said that if Mr Trimble failed to include Sinn Fein in the Executive, "the two governments party to the Agreement should reject the Trimble veto, take responsibility into their own hands and implement the Agreement."
Mr Walsh said that "the next couple of weeks are critical," as the Northern Ireland Assembly will meet to approve formally the creation of the new Executive and cross-Border bodies.
A Democratic member, Mr Richard Neal, also accused Mr Trimble of trying to renegotiate the Agreement and of "deliberately developing a crisis in the peace negotiations".
Mr Trimble should "not be allowed to park, rewrite or renegotiate an Agreement that was approved by the vast majority of the people of Ireland," he said.
Mr Neal, who is a co-chairman of the Friends of Ireland Committee, said that Mr Trimble had "repeatedly" missed deadlines and used decommissioning as a pretext to review the Belfast Agreement. Mr Neal said that the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, should be ready to give the peace process new impetus and President Clinton should also play a role if that was the wishes of the two governments and the people of Northern Ireland.
Reform of the RUC was also a theme of the hour-long debate. A Republican member, Mr Ben Gilman, who is chairman of the International Affairs Committee, announced that there would be Congressional hearings on the reform of the RUC on April 22nd.
Mr Gilman said that a new and acceptable police force was now needed.
Mr Walsh said that "the overriding problem is that the nationalist community does not see the RUC as their police force." For much of its history the force operated often as "an oppressive arm of the Stormont unionist administration."