The Minister for Foreign Affairs has called on the British government to take a radical and constructive approach to the demilitarisation of Northern Ireland, warning against "an excess of conservative and counter-productive caution".
Mr Cowen's comments last night suggest a difference of approach between the two governments on the issue, coming just 24 hours after Mr Peter Mandelson said in Dublin that further demilitarisation could happen only "in the light of the security situation".
In a speech to a Fianna Fail meeting in Co Mayo, Mr Cowen acknowledged that the Belfast Agreement said the level of threat needed to be taken into account.
But he suggested that demilitarisation and political progress could contribute to the reduction of the level of threat, and that the British should therefore take a more radical approach to removing military bases and troops.
"Such calculations must recognise that the security situation and the political dynamic feed into each other, and that political progress is the best way of removing the threat once and for all," he said.
Mr Cowen said demilitarisation - the removal of British army installations and troops from Northern Ireland - was a key element of the Belfast Agreement. It was in the interests of both governments that the political institutions succeed and peace be sustained.
To that end, he said, "we have to examine our own responsibilities and ask ourselves how specifically that is to be achieved". He said the British government had reacted positively to the recommendations of the Patten report on policing.
"It is important that they look equally radically and constructively at other issues, including security normalisation/demilitarisation, a key element of the agreement".
Mr Mandelson told the Irish Management Institute on Thursday night that the British were committed to returning to normal security arrangements "as soon as the threat allows".
He said much had already been done, "including the closure or demolition of 26 army bases since the ceasefires, the reduction of army patrolling to about 30 per cent of the level at April 1998, and the withdrawal of over 3,000 troops from Northern Ireland".
The Irish Government argues that demilitarisation, police reforms and the implementation of other aspects of the Belfast Agreement will create an atmosphere in which IRA decommissioning can be achieved.
The Government has indicated it wants to move away from simple demands for decommissioning. Instead, it wants to place the issue in the broader context of the implementation of the rest of the agreement.
Mr Cowen said the two governments had begun charting a new strategy to overcome the deadlock. He said that discussions he and Mr Mandelson had with the pro-agreement parties on Wednesday had been "frank and tough, but constructive".
He said all parties, and the two governments, had agreed "that the agreement cannot retain credibility if it staggers from crisis to crisis".